A Report On A Simulated Consecutive Interpreting Practice From The Theme-Rheme Perspective

With more and more countries announcing their “carbon neutral” plans,how to achieve carbon net-zero has become one of the hot topics of international concern.Therefore,this simulated consecutive interpreting practice chose 2022-Evidence to Action:Achieving the Net-Zero 2050 Targets as the interpreting material.In the interpreting process,the differences of information structures between English and Chinese and the complexity of these structures somehow related to the quality of interpreting output.When the structures of the source language were complex and different from that of the target language,it was more difficult to interpreted and it was easier to lead to problems,such as improper pauses and repetitions.With language structures as the focus of Theme-Rheme theory,this thesis took the perspective of this theory,conducting quantitative and qualitative analysis of this interpreting practice,and discussed the impact of the thematic structures in the source language on interpreting,so as to provide reference to increase understanding of interpreting and improve the quality of it.This thesis presented a discussion on how often the thematic structures were changed,whether the structural changes overlapped with interpreting deficiencies,and how often the structural changes happen in different types of thematic structures,and then conducted qualitative analysis of related cases.It was found that about 65.75% of the thematic structures were changed in this interpreting task,most of which were not mandatory.Mandatory changes were required when dealing with some conjunctions that do not exist in Chinese,Rhemes containing temporal adverbials and embedded attributives as postmodifier.There was little difference in complexity between dealing with single Themes and multiple Themes in interpreting.What mattered was the complexity of the internal structures of the Themes.Themes that caused difficulties in interpreting included chaotic Themes,group complexes as Themes,Themes containing embedded clauses and elliptical Themes.Strategies such as reconstruction,addition,omission were suggested for each type of the structures above.Interpreters were suggested to take targeted interpreting practices for each type of these Themes to improve interpreting quality.