A Practice Report On Simulated Simultaneous Interpreting Of "Opportunities And Tasks Of The Development Of Traditional Chinese Medicine In The New Era"

With the change of health concept and medical purpose worldwide,the development of traditional Chinese medicine has aroused more people’s attention,and has gradually been approved and accepted by the international community.The revitalization of traditional Chinese medicine ushers in a broad prospect.Under this background,a series of academic conferences,international forums,etc.were successfully held at home and abroad,which have played an important role in academic exchanges and publicity.As a link of cross-cultural communication,the role of interpretation can’t be ignored.The theory and practice of TCM English translation have been continuously developed,but the development of TCM English interpretation,especially TCM conference interpreting,is lagging behind,with limited resources and a shortage of interpreters.Therefore,the study of TCM academic conferences interpreting is of great significance for international communication and English interpretation of traditional Chinese medicine.Functional equivalence theory emphasizes the meaning and spirit of the source language,pays attention to the response of the recipients of the target language,and does not stick to form equivalence.Researchers have introduced this theory many times when discussing the translation of traditional Chinese medicine.Based on functional equivalence theory,the author selected Professor Zhang Boli’s keynote speech"Opportunities and Tasks of the Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the New Era" as the material,the author conducted a Chinese-English simulated simultaneous interpreting practice.Aiming at the problems in the practice,the author analyzed the characteristics of the discourse and tried to solve the problems by using the interpreting methods and techniques under functional equivalence theory,then concluded gains and shortcomings in the process of TCM academic conference interpreting,and accumulated experience for further learning and practice.By analyzing and studying on this interpreting practice,it was found that in the process of TCM academic conference interpreting,there were problems such as misinterpretation,loss of information,and redundancy etc.Among them,loss of information was the most serious one.Through analyzing cases in this practice,besides subjective factors,loss of information was mainly related to the characteristics of the discourse.In this keynote speech,there were many characteristic terms mainly including technical terms in TCM and Chinese culture-loaded words;the information was intensive;the speaker spoke fast;redundancy and logical confusion sometimes occurred and the language style was distinct.These were all the difficulties encountered by the interpreter.Therefore,under the guidance of functional equivalence theory,the author adopted literal interpreting for technical terms in TCM and the speaker’s poetic verses,transliteration for some technical terms in TCM,free interpreting for Chinese culture-loaded words and sentences that reflect the speaker’s language style,simplification for high-density information sentences,omission for redundancy,and reorganization for logical confusion.By using the above methods and techniques,the target language is more concise and smooth,and loss of information can be alleviated to some extent.Through this interpreting practice,the author found that only by combining the corresponding interpreting methods can the quality of interpretation be guaranteed.The problems and solutions in the simulated simultaneous interpreting practice will provide experience for the author’s future study and practice.The author hopes that this practice can also provide some reference for more interpreters who are also interested in TCM academic conference interpreting.