Debate Interpreting:a Case Study On The Interpretation Of Singapore’s FY2012Budget Debate

Debate is a social activity that the debaters use to express the viewpoints and to achieve a common view with the audience. Debaters normally use powerful words, distinctive expressions to state their opinions, in order to resonate with the audience. As an interpreter, how to show the maximum level of all the linguistic features is not an easy target to achieve. Therefore, during the interpreting process, the interpreter has to break the linguistic restrictions and try his best to represent the debate.This interpreting report is the summary of the interpreting program of the debate about FY2012-budget given by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam on March1st,2012. The report sums up the interpreting theories and the problems occurred during the interpretation. The author introduced the content of the debate, and chose Skopos theory as the core strategy based on the preparatory work. The report discussed four issues:the pragmatic features of this debate; how to deal with long sentences; reiterations in speech; the use of Skopos theory.Through summarizing the interpretation, the author believes that to fulfill a high-quality interpreting task needs the efforts about the preparatory work in terms of background knowledge and appropriate theory aiming at both the speaker and audiences.