An Experiment Report On Differences Between Professional And Trainee Interpreters In Interpreting Stance In Political Discourse

In political contexts, a speaker of a certain political group displays his stance on the matter being stated. Thus, it is essential for an interpreter to convey speakers’ stance in his interpretation. Based on political discourse analysis(PDA) and Biber’s stance theory, the author studies discrepancies in interpreting stance between trainee interpreters and a professional interpreter(Zhang lu) through an experiment of 12 MTI students with an aim to improving interpreting skills of trainee interpreters in political context.The experimental data was collected after twelve individual experiments with each subject. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis of data, the author finds the major differences in conveying stance between trainee interpreters and the professional interpreter that trainee interpreters tend to literally interpret tagged stance markers, while the professional interpreter prefers to employ proper interpreting skills to strengthen or weaken stance of the speaker when necessary. This can be attributed to trainee interpreters’ lack of understanding of stance, effort distribution and insufficient practices in political contexts.Findings in this report suggest that interpreters should develop an awareness of stance in interpreting and learn to employ proper interpreting skills to convey speakers’ stance so as to ensure fluent and efficient communication between interlocutors. Besides, this report can serve as supplementary training materials for trainee interpreters to improve their interpreting skills and as reference for teachers to upgrade their teaching method.