A Report On The Interpretation Of The Subway Network Of Beijing

A series of language skills are required for the fulfilment of an interpreting practice, such as scientific theoretical guidance, solid bilingual knowledge, outstanding communicative ability, good psychological quality and mastery of the cultural background. The writer chose the Theory of Sense as the theoretical guidance for this thesis. The interpretational school arose in the late 1960 s in France. It was put forward by a school that looked into interpretation and non-literary translation. The school held that translation, in nature, was the explanation of the intended. The interpreter explains the intended meanings of the original text by using linguistic signs and his own understanding. It is not the equivalence of the linguistic units that the interpreter should pursue. Instead, the intended meaning and effect is the key. The Theory of Sense divides the translation into three stages. First, the interpreter should precisely comprehend ideas and contents of the original text. Then is the process called “deverbalization”— the interpreter should let go of the linguistic signs and only bear the intended meaning in his mind. Last, he makes sentences by using the linguistic signs of another language. The theory was derived directly from interpreting practice. The idea it conveys provides unique enlightenment for the interpreting practice.The interpretation report is based on a documentary series named Mega Projects filmed by CCTV. The interpretation selected one episode recording the development of the Beijing subway from the series. The interpretation is for the foreign employees of Zhongyuan Special Steel Co., Ltd., a state-owned enterprise. The writer learned that they found out that many large and medium-sized cities in China had opened subway. Yet they hardly heard any reports of the subway construction. So they turned to the writer for more detailed information. The writer chose one documentary episode recording the typical construction process of Beijing subway system. The aim is to familiarize them with how China's subway network comes into shape. The report includes the detailed interpretation process, which consists of the pre-interpretation preparation, the interpretation and the summary.In the pre-interpretation part, the writer explained the background of the task, characteristics of the interpreting material and the requirement. The writer also included in the thesis the writing material gathering process and audience analysis. In the interpretation examples analysis part, the author picked out over 25 typical examples. The author introduced how the Theory of Sense was applied. Apart from that, the author also used other translation skills, like literal translation, paraphrasing, domestication, foreignization, etc. In the following part, the writer listed examples of mistranslation and difficulties he encountered. By comparing the original text and the translation, the writer analyzed the cause of his mistranslation. The writer also summarized the difficulties he encountered and the cause of the errors. The last part is a summary of the interpretation process. The writer assessed his self-performance.