A Study Of Interpreting Strategies On Hedges In Simultaneous Interpreting

Hedges are ambiguous or vague language expressions that people intentionally use in communication.In international conferences,hedges may be frequently used when speakers discuss sensitive topics or are uncertain about their speech.In order to ensure efficient communication,international conferences generally adopt simultaneous interpreting(SI).Therefore,interpreters face the problem of properly dealing with hedges in dialogue.However,there is little research on the interpreting strategies of hedges in SI of international conferences.The World Economic Forum(WEF)is an international conference with global influence involving international issues.The participants of WEF address free discussions,in which hedges would be used frequently.In the study,the SI videos provided by WEF were used as the corpus.According to the classification of Prince et al.(1982),hedges are divided into approximators and shields.By analyzing the use of hedges and the interpreting strategies adopted by the interpreters,this study aims to explore the influence of different hedges on interpreting and communication.This study transcribed 11 English meetings of WEF in 2022 and their corresponding Chinese SI recordings.Finally,a miniature WEF English-Chinese SI Corpus(WEF-ECSIC)with nearly 200,000 tokens was built.Based on WEF-ECSIC,the study finds that approximators occur more frequently.It is mainly because sensitive topics are often involved in international conferences,so speakers use imprecise or vague expressions frequently.In order to ensure interpretation quality and meet audience expectations,interpreters mainly adopt omission and equivalence strategies on hedges.The omission is primarily used in hedges without semantic or pragmatic functions.In order to save face,soften the tone,or protect the speaker,the interpreters adopt the equivalence strategy and retain the hedges with pragmatic functions.The equivalence strategy can help the speaker achieve the communication purpose and promote successful communication.This study is helpful to deepen the understanding of novice interpreters on hedges in SI and provide a reference for the teaching of SI.