Interpreter's Manipulation Of Deontic Modality In Political Discourse

Deontic modality,as one of three basic modalities,has covered a great number of expressions in both Chinese and English.Modal verbs,adverbials of manner,virtual finger and imperative clauses all can express deontic meaning.As essential modal verbs with high value,should and must are regarded as research targets in many studies.But the study where deontic modality is regarded as the sole research target is rare.The study of deontic modality in the field of interpreting is rarer.In traditional definition deontic modality expresses the meaning of obligation and permission.In serious political context,the deontic modality conveyed by the officials and leaders stands for the governmental and national will.It is of vital importance for the interpreter to express and manipulate the deontic modality accurately within the limited time.Thus how does the interpreter interpret the sense and value of the deontic modality is regarded as the core research question of this study.The materials of this study are five transcripts of the press conference hold by Keqiang Li from 2014 to 2017 and the press conference with Yi Wang as speaker in 2017.As the expression of deontic modality,modal verbs such as “yao”,“ying” and “ying gai” show up with high frequency,thus those modal verbs with deontic meaning is regarded as the research target in this study.Firstly the sentences consisting “yao” “ying” and “ying gai” with deontic meaning are picked up,and are compared with the correspondent interpretations.The interpretations with high frequency or unique features are chose to the further discussion.This study finds that the interpretation of modal verbs with deontic meaning shows great varieties,and rules are generalized from the results.In other word,even under the serious political circumstances with limited time the interpreters still has the space to manipulate the interpreting.