A Study Of Interpreting Strategies For Press Conference From The Perspective Of Interpretive Theory

The NPC and CPPCC sessions in March each year have long been noticed by allsectors of the society. Especially in recent years, with the increasing rise of China’sinternational standing and influence, many foreign journalists and media attend thepress conference held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the NPC and CPPCCsessions. Journalists from home and abroad ask questions about issues that havefetched widespread international concerns. In the course of the press conference, it isof vital importance for the foreign journalists and media and Chinese leaders tocommunicate with each other without language and understanding barriers. As thechannel of cross-cultural communication, interpreting is crucial to the success of apress conference.Therefore, interpreting, which is an ancient human practice, has regainedpeople’s attention and has been attached great importance to. A hot wave ofinterpreting research has risen home and abroad. Because of the instantaneity ofinterpreting, results of scientific and systematic interpreting theories are not so fruitful.China started late on interpreting research and so a complete and consummate systemhas not been built. In the research field, we draw a lot on the experience of foreignresearch achievements among which was the Interpretive Theory put forward by theParis School. As a recognized theoretical reference, Interpretive Theory is offar-reaching influence to the theoretical research and actual application of interpretingin China. This theory was first proposed by Danica Seleskovitch, a well-knownFrench interpreter and theorist. Interpretive theory stresses that sense is the coreconcept of interpreting and scholarship of this school holds that interpreting is a kindof communicative activity and the process of interpreting is the process of senseexplanation. And they think that the nature of interpreting is to convey and interpretthe non-linguistic meanings in the discourse.With Interpretive Theory as the theoretical framework, this thesis discusses thecharacteristics of press conference interpreting, analyzes possible obstacles in the course of interpreting practice and explores the strategies of Press ConferenceInterpreting. Simultaneous interpretation (SI) and consecutive interpretation (CI) arethe two most common classifications of press conference categorized from theperspective of working style. And CI is the major type discussed in this thesis. PCIshares characteristics of up-to-date topics and authoritativeness and political-relatednatures in the content. As to the linguistic characteristics, PCI is required to beaccurate, concise and formal. Simple sentences are preferred in PCI and theinterpreter should be well-trained and have alert political awareness.The core concept of Interpretive Theory is that the object that an interpretercomprehends, de-verbalizes and re-expressed is the sense the addresser conveys ratherthan the linguistic forms the addresser expresses, so an interpreter’s major task is toaccomplish the process of de-verbalization and seize the sense (Seleskovitch,1978:43). Then the procedures of interpreting, the well-known Triangle Model, arefurther presented, including comprehension, de-verbalization and re-expression.On the basis of Interpretive Theory, several strategies for PCI are introduced.They are explanatory interpreting, contextual interpreting, logical relationshipmanifestation and syntactic processing.1. Explanatory interpretingThere are many culture-loaded expressions and idioms in Chinese, and it is hardto find the equivalences in English, so it is very necessary for an interpreter to explainthe implicit meanings so that the target audience can understand well.2. contextual interpretingWhen the interpreter comes across some undecipherable phrases or sentences,which means there is no way to find the equivalence in the target language withkeeping the original form or literal meaning of the source language, the interpretercould make use of the contextual environment and their encyclopedic knowledge.3. Logical relationship manifestationChinese belongs to those paratactic languages and the logic is usually wovenwithin the context. Logical relatives are seldom used in the discourse. English is ahypotactic language which involves lots of explicit logical relatives. So it is of vital importance to thoroughly understand the logical relationship knitted in the sourcematerial. Therefore logical relationship manifestation is a very practical and effectiveway of interpreting.4. Syntactic processingThe structure of Chinese tends to be linear. The syntactic structure of a sentenceis sometimes incomplete. The subject or object or other syntactic constituents will beomitted sometimes. Therefore, Chinese language carries the feature of lacking unityand consistency in syntactic structure. English has rigorous grammatical rules. Sowhen interpreting, it is inevitable to reorganize the syntactic structure based on theunderstanding of the source language.The author hopes this study may help the interpreting enthusiasts and MTItrainees to have a general understanding of Interpretive Theory and PCI and learnseveral basic interpreting strategies in order to deepen their theoretical foundation andto improve their ability of actual application of interpreting strategies.