Explicitation In Chinese-English Consecutive Interpreting From The Perspective Of Systemic Functional Linguistics

The Chinese Premier meets with journalists from home and abroad during the "Two Sessions," which are the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference,and answers their questions.Interpretation is crucial to the exchange and transfer of information during this process.However,because there is a time constraint for interpretation,interpreters must choose effective strategies.Explicitation refers to "a stylistic translation technique which consists of making explicit in the target language what remains implicit in the source language because it is apparent from either the context or the situation".It is a translation strategy that improves the translation’s efficiency.During the past several decades,interpreting study was gradually added to the research of explicitation procedures.Systemic functional linguistics is closely related to translation studies,and provides theoretical support and evaluation methods for the study of explicitation in translation.Hu Kaibao and Zhu Yifan’s typology of explicitation is based on the three metafunctions of Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics(2008).With the help of this typology,this paper constructs its own parallel corpus of Chinese-English consecutive interpretation of the 2018-2022 Premier Li Keqiang Meets the Press to study the explicitation strategy and analyze the use of the strategy by the interpreter.In addition,critical discourse analysis,as an effective tool for studying the social ideology behind linguistic symbols,is also valuable in the study of translation and interpretation of political discourse.The three metafunctions of Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics are effective to realize critical discourse analysis.Therefore,this paper takes the Chinese-English interpretation of the 2018-2022 Premier Li Keqiang Meets the Press as the object of Chinese political discourse interpretation research,aiming to investigate 1)the interpreter’s adoption of explicitation technique based on systemic functional linguistics in the interpretation process,and 2)the specific changes between ST and TT after adopting explicitation,3)the impact of the adoption on the shaping of China’s image in international political discourse communication.The paper finds that 1)the interpreter uses ideational,interpersonal,and textual explicitation in interpreting in political discourse communication,2)explicitation of the subject or object implied in the source text,explicitation of modal words,and explicitation of words with ideational information take up the most amount of explicitation regarding the 10 main forms of explicitation strategy,and 3)the interpreter enhances the positive image of China through the explicitation of the implicit meaning of the source language.This paper proposes that interpretation plays a role as a product of China’s global communication and reflects China’s political stance.The importance of the use of the strategy of explicitation in the interpretation of Chinese political discourse is evident,and interpreters should pay attention to its influence on Chinese political discourse and the construction of China’s international image,and strive to build a positive Chinese image while effectively conveying China’s voice.