A Study Of The Application Of The Contextual Correlates In Press Conference Interpretation

Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory covers all the research contents in traditional Pragmatics topics and hence contains strong explanatory power, providing a new perspective for the research of interpretation. Verschueren divides contexts into two categories. The first is the linguistic context including contextual cohesion, intertexuality and sequencing. The second is the communicative context which contains physical world, social world and mental world. These contexts together influence the process of communication. Moreover, the adaptation to these contexts decides whether communication can be achieved successfully.In this thesis, the writer preliminarily analyzes the application of contextual correlates mentioned in Adaptation Theory by Verschueren in press conference interpretation via the example of the live interpretation of Premier Li Keqiang’s press conference in 2013 and 2014. Premier Press Conference held after two sessions is a serious diplomatic occasion. The audience of the press conference are professional journalists at home and abroad and the content involves various hot topics in China. In Premier Press Conference, the physical world, social world and mental world are complicated and they change dynamically with the proceeding of communication. Therefore, when facing these complicated contexts, the interpreter should not only adapt to the linguistic structure, but also handle with the linguistic context and the communicative context accurately. He needs to constantly make appropriate choices to adapt to all the contexts to make the communication proceed smoothly.In this thesis, the author takes the interpretation in the Premier Press Conference in 2013 and 2014 as example, analyzes the selection of words, cohesion, interpreting strategies and so on from two perspectives: adaptation to the linguistic context and adaptation to the communicative context. And the author tries to prove that Adaptation Theory is theoretical guidance to press conference interpretation and illustrates how interpreters adapt to contexts so as to complete communication effectively. In addition, the author concludes that as an important participant of communication, the interpreter is supposed to adapt to all the contexts. Therefore, interpreters should enhance their competence in handling and adapting to contexts. In order to achieve this goal, interpreters should improve their language proficiency and culture consciousness in daily training.