Interpreting Obama’s 2014 State Of The Union Address

As a bridge between different languages and cultures, interpreting is attracting more and more attention while the world forges ahead. This thesis attempts a consecutive interpreting of Obama’s 2014 State of the Union Address and offers some reflections on interpreting tasks of the kind. In the annual State of the Union Address, the US President explains the domestic and international pressures faced by his country and expresses his political views and new policies in various fields. Due to the huge influence of the US in the international community, the State of the Union Address not only attracts audiences in America, but also has overseas listeners. Therefore, it is of practical significance to study this case of consecutive interpreting.Using a language is a process of making choices. From the perspective of Adaptation Theory, this thesis discusses the interpretation choices and strategies that could be used through the project. And for the translation of proper nouns, interpreters can add explanations. For the translation of figures of speech, interpreters can adopt strategies of adding explanations, converting figures of speech and offering equivalent translation. For the translation of complex sentences, interpreters can use strategies of rebuilding translated texts, dividing long sentences and converting. For the translation of real instances, interpreters can use strategy of deleting unnecessary information. It is argued that adapting while working on such addresses will help the interpreters better accomplish their interpreting tasks.