A Study On C-E Simultaneous Interpreting Strategies For Impromptu Speeches From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Skopos Theory contends that the purpose of translation determines translation strategies,and translators must abide by three rules in the process of translation,namely,skopos rule,coherence rule and fidelity rule,among which skopos rule stands at the most important position.The three rules can instruct interpreters in producing high-quality interpreting and achieving the communicative purpose of interpreting.As a form of speech frequently encountered by interpreters,the language features of impromptu speech give rise to certain obstacles to interpreters.In view of the fact that most of the previous studies took Interpretive Theory as the theoretical framework to explore impromptu speech interpreting which has been relatively infrequently studied from the perspective of Skopos Theory so far,consequently,it is of certain research value to explore the simultaneous interpreting strategies for impromptu speeches in light of Skopos Theory.Based on Skopos theory,this thesis selects WeChat Open Class speech in 2019 made by Zhang Xiaolong,the founder of WeChat,as the research data.With the three rules of Skopos Theory as the theoretical analysis tool,this thesis dissects the characteristics of impromptu speeches,the challenges encountered by the interpreter in WeChat Open Class interpreting and the requirements for the interpreter,aiming at exploring the simultaneous interpreting strategies adopted by the interpreter under the guidance of the three rules of Skopos Theory.The research method of this thesis is qualitative research,and the data of the study is a video of Zhang Xiaolong's speech in 2019 WeChat Open Class.The duration of the research data is 139 minutes and 26 seconds,and the transcription is roughly 42,200 words.Through analysis,it is found that(1)the impromptu speech requires the speakerto organize the wording on the spot.Hence,it tends to enjoy strong colloquial characteristics,such as interruption of sentences,hesitation pauses,false starts,loose text structures,etc.;(2)it is prone to giving rise to obstacles in listening and interpreting for the interpreter,thereby substantially reinforcing the difficulty of simultaneous interpreting;(3)given the fact that the speaker is speaking while thinking,the interpreter is nearly realistically improbable to accurately predict the content of the speech,which brings greater difficulties to the interpreter;(4)the interpreter encounters certain challenges which respectively occur from terminology,run-on sentences,redundant expressions,humorous utterances and accent of the speaker.The thesis holds that in the process of simultaneous interpreting,the interpreter's selection of interpreting strategies is crucial and directly related to the quality of the target text.The main strategies summarized in this thesis are the following:(1)omission,addition and substitution;(2)free interpretation,simplification and integration;(3)explicitation,literal interpretation and syntactic linearity.Through these strategies,the source text was interpreted coherently,smoothly and faithfully,thus the purpose of interpreting can be realistically achievable.