A Study Of Press Conference Interpreting Skills (Chinese To English) From The Perspective Of Interpretive Theory

Since the reform and opening up policy was released, China has been playing anessential role in the global economics, politics and other affairs. The fast and widedevelopment in China and more involvement in the world make it more urgent andpopular to communicate with foreign countries from various aspects. Sino-foreignpress conference effectively assists the Chinese government to deliver messages andissue decisions and policies. Press conference interpreting can be regarded as theinterpreting of an interview held by government with presence of domestic andforeign journalists to state the viewpoints of the government with the purposes ofpromoting national image and presenting the current situations and policies to theworld. Consecutive interpreting is employed in most cases of press conferences heldby Chinese central government departments with Chinese to English interpreting asthe dominating way. Consecutive interpreting can better state the viewpoints ofChinese government compared to simultaneous interpreting, which correspondinglyfacilitates the promotion of China’s image and international influence.This paper specifically analyzed and explored press conference Chinese toEnglish interpreting under the guidance of Interpretive Theory. Interpretive Theory,also known as sense-based theory, was first raised by Danica Seleskovitch in1968,which is remarkable as the first systemic theory of interpreting. The theory highlightsthat, interpreting is communication activities and its core task is to de-verbalize thesense from original language to target language generated by the interpreter’slanguage and cognitive knowledge of the addresser’s discourse.This paper takes the Premier Li’s Press Conference in2014as the example toillustrate the general skills of press conference Chinese to English interpreting fromthe perspective of Interpretive Theory, which aims to make contributions totheoretical and practical significance of press conference interpreting, enlighteninterpreters from any point, and guide interpreter in some way and to some extent inpractice. The study found and integrated the interpreting skills of press conferenceChinese to English interpreting, including general interpreting skills of faithfulness,formality and economy, and specific interpreting skills of information integration,semantic explanation, cultural equivalence, emotional and contextual interpreting, andlogic processing. Meanwhile, it takes the Premier Li’s Press Conference in2014asexample to specifically analyzed and evaluated these skills. The above skills not onlycan enlighten interpreters from any point of the theory, but also guide the interpretersto accomplish the interpreting task in practice better and with fewer efforts.