Visibility Of Interpreters In English-Chinese Consecutive Interpreting

Interpreters were once regarded as invisible microphones. However, with the development of interpreting studies, researchers have found that interpreters are no longer invisible in the interpreting process. Instead, they are remarkably visible. The current research topics based on different cases include the justification of existence of interpreters’ visibility and analysis of constraints of interpreters’ visibility.The dissertation takes the consecutive interpreting activity held at a milk-supplying farm of Mengniu Dairy Group in 2015 as a case study, with the theoretical tool of Pochhacker’s "triangulating" mediation theory, to investigate the impacts and functions of the interpreter’s visibility based on the textual level analysis. Research data include the audio data (six files,109 minutes and 1 second in length) and transcripts, visual data (one file,2 minutes and 44 seconds in length) and transcripts. "Triangulating" mediation theory is applied to study the interpreting effects of visibility from cognitive mediating, linguistic/cultural mediating and contractual mediating. Visibility on the textual level emphasizes during the interpreting practice interpreters use various methods of addition, omission, adaptation, and of speaking interpreters’ own words, and of change of speed flow and pace, words and sentences order to accomplish the interpreting tasks.The dissertation finds that interpreters’ visibility on the textual level have both positive and negative impacts. The positive impacts show the improved mutual understanding in bridging the gap between different cultures and languages and a pleasant interactive atmosphere between the audience and the interpreter. While the negative ones include more obstacles of mutual understanding, an enlarged linguistic/cultural gap and an unpleasant interactive setting. The dissertation argues that in order to undertake a successful interpreting task, interpreters especially working in companies have to adapt the degree and ways of visibility during the interpreting process subject to directions and the content of the interpretation, demands and acceptability of the audience, aims and affects of interpretation.