Meaning Transfer in Consecutive Interpreting: A Functional Description of Chinese Government Press Conference Interpreting

Abstract

Meaning and meaning transfer is central to consecutive interpreting, both pragmatically and theoretically. Therefore, a comprehensive and sophisticated understanding of meaning components, and the process, major influencing factors and patterns of meaning transfer is fundamental not only to consecutive interpreting practice, quality assessment, teaching and training, but also to theoretical studies of consecutive interpreting. To date, however, there has been little comprehensive and systematic study of meaning transfer in consecutive interpreting. Meaning transfer is a multi-dimensional and multi-componential process. For this reason, a multidisciplinary approach is taken, integrating concepts and theories from descriptive translation studies, the interpretive theory of translation, and M.A.K Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics (SFL) with added support from a thorough empirical investigation. In specific, this takes the form of an analysis and description of Chinese government press conference interpreting, following a top-down order. First, drawing on documentary data, we analyse and describe the Social Institutional Context and Situational Context. Second, through analysing and comparing three authentic Chinese government press conference interpreting cases, we investigate the patterns of transferring Experiential, Interpersonal and Textual Meaning and their influencing variables, and explore the possible motivation for the given pattern. With reference to the Social Institutional and Situational Context, we examine and evaluate the meaning transfer patterns and identify the norms for transferring the three types of meaning. Third, various relevant influencing variables are categorized into different contexts which are used for the construction of a meaning transfer model for Experiential, Interpersonal and Textual Meaning, respectively. Finally, these three meaning transfer models are integrated into a comprehensive meaning transfer model for consecutive interpreting.