Cultural Presupposition In Cultural Message Interpreting: C–E Press Conference As A Case Study

With China’s growing national strength and improving international status, the official press conference has become one of significant channels for communicative exchanges between China and the world. Usually, the speaker intends to mention in their utterances some proverbs, idioms, allusions and poems which contain profound cultural messages, which has become the great challenge for the interpreter to convey accurately. The thesis, based on the theory of cultural presupposition and taking the press conferences presided by Wang Yi and Yang Jiechi held by Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs as example, analyzes difficulties in interpreting of press conference resulted from the difference between cultural presuppositions and suggests the methods the interpreter should take to cope with the difficulties. The thesis firstly reviews the studies of cultural message interpreting from three perspectives of Intercultural Communication, Reception Theory and Skopos Theory and introduces the definition, features and functions of cultural presupposition. Then, the features of press conference as well as the style and characteristics of interpreting of press conference are discussed. After that, the thesis, analyzes the interpreting difficulties including emotional expressions and culture-loaded expressions and puts forward methods such as literal translation, paraphrase, addition and reformulation.