ICMs Of Chinese Four-character Phrases In Conference Interpreting

Four-character phrase is the combination of four separate syllables. As long asthe communication demands, people will try to deploy a variety of four characters toenhance their effectiveness and efficiency in communicative discourse. With theproceeding of the globalization of world politics and economy, communicationsamong multi-cultures appear to be much more frequent than ever. The interpretationhas been playing an increasingly important role in the cross-culture communication,and so as to the prominence of the conference interpretation. In Chinese conferenceinterpretation, the four-character phrases are widely applied, which has aroused therelevant studies in interpreting methodology and inner operating mechanism byinterpreters and related researchers.Interpretation, as a special communication behavior, lies at the core in thecomprehension and analysis of the language meaning, which manifests the uniquemodel of thinking operation and professional cognition of the interpreters. Lakoff, anAmerican linguist, put forward the theory about ICM (Idealize Cognitive Model) in1983as the mental construction of the knowledge about the object world from theprospective of human beings, which is idealized. Chinese four-character phrases, as akind of formulaic expression with their characteristics of meaningful and concise,vivid and imagistic, are a representative part of Chinese language; and the innerthinking modes and expression ways operate closely with the cognitive models peopleknowing and perceiving the world. The thesis takes ICM theory as its starting point toanalyze the meaning construction of the four-character phrases and the special cognitive models acquired by the interpreters, aiming to dissect the cognition ofChinese four-character phrases and propose new perspectives for the study oninterpretation thinking process.In the research, the author tried to give the explanation of the following fourquestions:(1) How the four-character phrases involved in the conference speech can becategorized?(2) What kinds of ICM are involved in the four-character phrases interpreting?(3) What are the differences between the ICMs of two different cultures related tothe four-character phrases?(4) In which way can the interpreters bridge the cultural gap, reconstructing anew ICM for the foreign audiences or paraphrasing the existing ICM in thesource text to the listeners in their understandable way?The methodology adopted in this thesis includes:(1) collecting the data from theconference interpretation annual year such as NPPCC and categorizing them ingroups for the further analysis;(2) combining the analysis with three main cognitivemodels, the image-schematic model, the metaphorical model and the metonymicmodel;(3) proposing three corresponding relationships in ICMs between the Chinesefour-character phrases and their English counterparts: the correspondence of ICMs,overlapping of ICMs and default of ICMs;(4) putting forward certain strategies tocope with different relationships, such as full implantation of new ICMs, partimplantation of new ICMs and zero implantation of new ICMs, so as the interpretingskills.The study has found that there are three cognitive states in the process offour-character interpreting:(1) there is similar or equivalent cognitive model betweenthe ST and TT, and the interpreter should make the most use of equivalence to let theinterpretation apprehensible;(2) there is a comprehensible model for the TT listenerto accept the information in ST with a different basic cognitive model, and theinterpreter should try the best to bridge the gap;(3) there is no equal part between the ST and TT and a lack of perception of the ST, at this time, the interpreter shouldutilize the existing cognitive model in the TT to construct and interpret the meaning.The study based on timely corpus and cognitive theory is aiming to make somecontributions to the interpretation studies and the teaching practices.