A Study On The Interpreting Of Chinese Four-character Structures In Speeches

The four-character Chinese are frequently used in Chinese speeches because ofits unique language form and powerful expressiveness. However, the obviouscontrast between this unique Chinese language form and English language addsdifficulty to the English interpreting of Chinese speeches. It is by no means easy forinterpreter to abide by the principle of “Faithfulness, Expressiveness and Elegance”as he/she interprets four-character Chinese in such a short time. Therefore, it isnecessary that interpreters master some specific strategies to deal with it. With thehelp of those strategies, the interpreting would be faithful to the source languagewhile being accepted by the English audiences as far as possible.The thesis started with the definition of four-character Chinese, and classifiedthem according to their origins, usage, grammatical functions and their interiorgrammatical structures. In the second part, the author pointed out two barriers ininterpreting Chinese four-character structures: cultural background of Chinese andChinese grammatical structures. In the last part, the author came up with somestrategies from the perspective of these two barriers. The author hoped to providesome references for interpreters when coping with four-character Chinese.