A Study Of The Visible Role Of Simultaneous Interpreters From The Perspective Of The Deviation Of Speaker's Stance

This study seeks to understand the visible role of simultaneous interpreters through the lens of stance.The study is done by examining and analyzing the transcribed and coded recordings of an international conference on bio-science cooperation between the U.K.and China.The recordings are provided by the two simultaneous interpreters with the source language and the interpretation recorded separately,each lasting about three hours.The data are analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively under the framework of Zhao's fourth information bridge in contrastive discourse analysis through three angles: affect,judgment and appreciation.By comparing the results of the source language and interpretation,deviations emerged.There are eight major deviations happened among all the cases: authorial affect increases;authorial affect decreases;complex affect deviates into basic affect;complex affect deviates into mental state;positive valuation deviates into implicit judgment;positive valuation deviates into explicit judgment;balanced composition lost;complex composition gained;explicit judgment deviates into implicit judgment.The changes can be contributed to three major reasons: first is language,language difference between Chinese and English;Second is context,the features of simultaneous interpreting and the specific features of the chosen setting;Third is language user,the factors of the speaker and interpreter,and their difference.These deviations would result in a stronger or weaker stance,revoking different receptions from the audience.Those different receptions would inevitably render the interpreter visible.The novelty and contribution of this dissertation is that: firstly,it is the first study done to study the role of simultaneous interpreters using typical international conference data;secondly,it is also the first essay to study the role of interpreters through the lens of speakers' stance.