Study On Hedges Utilized By Sign Language Interpreters In News Programs

To date,sign language interpreters engaged in television news programs in China are mainly divided into the hearing and the deaf.Previous studies claimed that the role of a deaf sign language interpreter is a crucial solution to the television news programs which make no sense to deaf audience,however,in terms of the sign language utilization and the interpretation quality,it is still a blur whether there lies the differences between hearing and deaf interpreters or not.This study regards Hedges(e.g.,according to incomplete statistics)playing a fundamental role in the news as the point-cut to exploit the condition when hearing and deaf interpreters deal with the news Hedges.Hedges are a phenomenon of vague language with the function of making the news closer to the reality or more ambiguous,which is instrumental in maintaining the authority and the public credibility of the news.With respect to various features of Hedges,this study,according to Prince's categories,primarily encompasses four distinct categories,which are adaptor,rounder,plausibility and attribution and explores the quantities,words selection of target language and high-frequency words in the process of interpretation between hearing and deaf interpreters when they encounter Hedges,drawing on the categorization and statistics of Hedges existed in the programs “Focus on”(a hearing interpreter,male)and“Sign Language News”(a deaf interpreter,male).It is shown that although two programs respectively share the similar quantities of Hedges,the hearing interpreter has holistically serious omissions and lacks the flexibility of language transformation and is less proficient in mastering high-frequency words as well during the phase of interpretation,whereas the interpretation of the deaf interpreter is relatively complete and accurate.Secondly,this study further analyzes the composition and formation of Hedges words between the hearing and the deaf interpreters under the circumstances of fourtypes of Hedges.It is revealed that the hearing interpreter basically uses a direct way and rarely resorts to the visual feature of the sign language to express Hedges.In contrast,the deaf interpreter adopts abundantly sufficient interpretation tactics,like non-manuals,classifier and words repetition in adaptor and rounder situations,which enormously facilitate the computation of Hedges,consistent with previous research claiming that the execution of the non-manuals and words repetition perceiving the adaptor and rounder condition by the deaf interpreter has a supplementary effect on Hedges interpretation.Finally,this study,based on Prince's pragmatic categories,further elaborates on a more detailed seven divisions of Hedges,which are truth-reflection,degree-restriction,scale-indefiniteness,data-restriction,opinion-objectiveness,basis-subjectivity,and source-covering types,and analyzes the absence of Hedges' pragmatic function caused by interpretation errors and omissions,which might be of help to following studies.