| The Theme-Rheme theory has been widely applied to translation studies over the years.In contrast,its application into interpreting studies is not so common as that in written translation research.However,this theory can serve as a valuable means to analyze the interpreted text in the product-oriented research in interpreting studies.The Theme-Rheme theory has been extensively recognized in investigation into the literary text.But it gains relatively low attention in practical types of discourses such as news report,advertisement,political speech and technical discourse.This paper,taking discourse analysis as a methodological ground,probes into English-to-Chinese simultaneous interpreting concerning the scientific and technical discourse through comparison of the thematic progression patterns between the SL and TL discourses of Apple's product announcements between 2015 and 2016.The current study has proposed three questions:(1)What are the major thematic progression patterns of the discourses in discussion?(2)To what extent do the SL text and TL text display similarity and dissimilarity in thematic progression patterns?(3)What are the contributors to the dissimilarity in their thematic progression patterns?After data analysis and causal discussion,this paper finds that linear progression and progression with constant Theme occurred at over 60% while progression with derived Theme and progression with derived Rheme appeared at 16% tops.Both English and Chinese texts display a high rate of dissimilarity in TP patterns at over 70%.Such factors as different linguistic focus,forced omission,interpreting strategy,misinterpretation,and different linguistic structure contribute to the dissimilarity in TP patterns of both texts.In conclusion based on the findings above,first,linear progression and progression with constant Theme are major thematic progression patterns of scientific and technical discourse during E-C simultaneous interpreting.Second,the thematic progression patterns of such discourse are more likely to be dissimilar than similar before and after simultaneous interpreting.Third,such dissimilarity might be triggered by many factors such as different linguistic focus,forced omission,interpreting strategy,misinterpretation,and different linguistic structure.By answering the questions above,this paper advances the development of the notion of thematic progression patterns in interpreting studies,and extends the application of Theme-Rheme theory into interpreting for the scientific and technical discourse.The description and comparison of the thematic progression patterns between the source text and the target text and the analysis of what cause the difference in thematic progression patterns help interpreters refine their performance when they endeavor to ensure the flow of discourse and to deliver the speaker's intention and purpose. |
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