| As many television news programs have been equipped with sign language interpreting service in recent years,Chinese new words which emerged at high frequency in these programs have become one of the major challenges for sign language interpreters.The existing researches on sign language vocabulary focus on the existing signs,mainly discussing the structural features and expression of these signs.The studies of sign language vocabulary and television sign language interpretation from the perspective of Chinese new words are still relatively lacking.Tian Linwei et al.(2016)have investigated the recognition of Chinese new words by the deaf community,and the results show that Chinese new words can be disseminated among deaf groups.However,this study focused on the subjects’ familiarity degree with Chinese new words instead of how to interpret them.In addition,there is no uniform provision on the sign language interpretation of Chinese new words in China,thus how to express them is not yet clear.The research in this field is closely related to the quality of sign language interpretation in TV news programs.This study examined the current status of interpretation of Chinese new words in CCTV news program Focus On and natural sign language,and attempted to analyze the similarities and differences between the two fields,so as to provide a possible reference for the interpretation of Chinese new words in TV news programs and for the theoretical researches on the generation of new words in natural sign language.In this study,some Chinese new words from 2012 to 2016 were chosen and their signing both in the Focus On and natural sign language were collected at first.Regarding the word formation in sign language for new words,the data in this study shows that six kinds of word formation methods have been used when natural sign language is borrowing new words from Chinese,including the Imitation,Description,Simplification,Metonymy,Explanation and Comprehensive method.Although thebasic words used by the interpreter is in line with that used by the natural sign language “speaker” in creation of a new word,there are obvious differences in the methods of word formation and the composition of the internal morphemes of the new words.Specifically,the “speaker” used all types of word formation methods when creating a word,while the interpreter only used the Imitation method and the Comprehensive method,with the proportion of the Imitation method topping 79.8%.In addition,the interpreter’s use of non-manual features is less than that of the natural sign language “speaker” while their use of manual alphabet is significantly higher.Secondly,this study required the deaf audiences chose the better one between the signing of new words in Focus On and that in natural sign language.The results show that the deaf audiences are more inclined to choose the signing of new words in natural sign language.This study holds that,on the one hand,the signed Chinese produced by the interpreter are influenced by language contact which is not conducive to the accurate interpretation of Chinese new words.On the other hand,the proper use of spatial,iconic,and non-manual features by the natural sign language “speaker” is in line with the iconicity and simplicity of sign language.Therefore,the deaf audiences prefer the signing in natural sign language.This study further suggests that word formation methods in natural sign language be properly used in the process of the interpreting Chinese new words.It is also suggested that the phonological constraints of sign language,such as the symmetry condition and the dominance condition,should be met during the word formation.Besides,in consideration of the news context,it is also necessary to observe the economic principle of language,that is,to simplify signs as much as possible if the meaning of the Chinese new words is not changed. |
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