| Vagueness is an inherent feature of natural language and being vague is one of the many hedging strategies.The use of hedges is not uncommon in such occasion as government press conference,in which the interpreter practices consecutive interpreting for the communication parties.Government press conference as a kind of political setting may see more frequent use of hedges.Relatively few previous studies adopt a corpus-based method to describe and analyze the use of hedges in such setting.This research attempts to explore hedges in government press conference interpreting based on a small DIY corpus.The research tries to answer the following questions:(1)What are the frequency and distribution of hedges in government press conference interpreting?(2)In what ways are the hedges in the interpreted text different from the source utterance?(3)What are the possible reasons for the use of hedges in government press conference interpreting?The research finds that between the two classes of hedges,approximators are more frequently used,with the frequency approaching 74%.Some hedges in the interpreted text have Chinese equivalents while some are added by the interpreters.With regard to the effects of the hedges in interpreting,some correspond to the source utterance,some mitigate the assertiveness of the source utterance and a few of them reinforce the stance of the source utterance.In some cases,hedges in interpreting in fact render more precise information than the source utterance.The interpreters use hedges in line with certain maxims of the Cooperative Principle and the Politeness Principle in an effort to give the right amount of information or maintain the face of self and other.The research can have certain theoretical and empirical implications.Theoretically,it may be able to give certain insights into researches on hedges in interpreting in other settings.Empirically,it may help interpreters develop better understanding of hedges in communication and perform better. |
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