CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introduction to the Project
The interpreting project that the author was engaged in this practice report was 2018 Visiting Program for Young Sinologists (Yangling Demonstration Zone), hosted by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People's Republic of China and organized by Shaanxi Normal University. 2018 Visiting Program for Young Sinologists aimed to strengthen cultural exchanges and set up a platform where young sinologists worldwide could communicate with each other and learn more about Chinese culture, history, agriculture, etc. In this program, sinologists were arranged to attend training classes or visit various companies or other places which were related to different fields such as culture, tourism, agriculture, etc. In order to meet the growing demand for sinology in the world today, the program was held in Xi’an, Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Guangdong. The author was one of the interpreters for the program in Xi’an. Seven sinologists were engaged in this program, and they were arranged to visit Yangling Demonstration Zone on September 12th and September 18th, 2018. The author served as the interpreter, providing two-way liaison interpreting service.
1.1.1 Task Description
The visit on September 12th, 2018 was the first interpreting task. In this task, sinologists visited Yang Ling Modern Agriculture Demonstration Park, Kingbull Husbandry Company and Yangling Global Horticulture Company. On September 11th, 2018, the author was informed by the translation company to interpret for sinologists when they visit the above three companies or parks. Upon receiving the task, the author tried to get more information about this visit from the organizer. However, theorganizer just provided the author with the name of two places, since they did not set the schedule. The author made pre-task preparation in a very short time. During the visit, company officials, or docents of parks introduced the details about their companies or parks which were all related to agriculture, while the author provided liaison interpreting service. Faced with plenty of professional knowledge in agriculture, the author found it difficult for her to interpret the information given by speakers.
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1.2 Objective and Significance of the Report
By analyzing the interpreting performance of the first task, the author identified failures which occurred in the interpreting, namely, inaccurate expression of terms, information misinterpretation, meaning loss and impolite expression, pet phrases and broken sentences. Theses failures were caused by insufficient pre-task preparation.From a Register theoretical approach, she found that these failures would result in non-equivalence of field, tenor, and mode between the source and target language.
The objective of this report is to propose some pre-task preparation methods，in order to have scientific pre-task preparation in liaison interpreting under the guidance of Register Theory, and to help the realization of register equivalence on spot. The author proposed five aspects of pre-task preparation and applied them in the preparation of the second interpreting task. Through self-evaluation and feedback, the feasibility of the preparation was verified. It was proved that five aspects of pre-task preparation were conductive to realize register equivalence on spot and improve the interpreting performance. Besides, the importance of adequate pre-task preparation was proved.
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CHAPTER II THEORETICAL SUPPORT AND LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction to Register Theory
This practice report is based on Register Theory to analyze failures caused by insufficient pre-task preparation for liaison interpreting in the field of agriculture. Register could help interpreters to analyze the interpreting task from multiple angles before the interpreting so as to anticipate contents which are related to the interpreting (Hu, 1989). Under the guidance of Register Theory, this report searches for preparation methods to have a scientific preparation for liaison interpreting. Register Theory, originated from British Contextualism (Eggins & Martin, 1997), is one of the important theories in systemic functional linguistics. The author introduces the definition of Register, its three variables and application of Register Theory in this part.
2.1.1 Definition of Register
Catford (1965, p. 89) noted that register is “correlated with the performer’s social role on a given occasion”. Besides, register is defined from the perspective of sociolinguistics as “language variables according to the using purpose” (Hudson, 1996, p. 45). From the perspective of general linguistics, register is defined as “a set of features of speech or writing characteristics of a particular type of linguistic activity or a particular group when engaging in it” (Radford et al., 1999, p. 256). Among definitions of register, the definition proposed by Halliday is regarded as the most influential one. He put forward that linguistics situation is different from one another in three aspects: what is taking place; what function language has in this situation; who is participating in this situation. They are three variables which determine the selection of meanings and forms used to expression the meaning. Inanother word, three variables determine the register (Halliday, 1978). Later, the definition is further explained as “a configuration of field, mode, and tenor…which must include the expressions, the lexicon-grammatical and phonological features that typically accompany or realize these meanings” (Halliday & Hasan, 1985, p. 39).
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2.2 Studies on Liaison Interpreting
Liaison interpreting is a two-way interpreting where the interpreter uses two languages to help two or more people communicate. It frequently happens all around the world. When several people speaking different languages during visits, meetings, travel, etc., they need to ask a bilingual for help, in order to overcome language barriers (Phelan, 2008).
Domestic scholars have studied occasions and characteristics of liaison interpreting. Liaison interpreting is used in following occasions, namely, tourism guide, banquet diet, opening ceremony of an exhibition, business negotiation, business visit, study abroad, educational exchange, academic research, cultural exchange, sports activities, politics visits, community services, medical interpreting and judicial disputes (Zhan, 2010). Besides, characteristics of liaison interpreting were explored by Zhang (2014). In her opinion, liaison interpreting features with frequent shifting turns and multiple occasions. Compared with consecutive interpreting, the number of people involves in liaison interpreting is not fixed. The distance between the interpreter and speaker is less than that of consecutive interpreting, since both sides communicate with each other face to face (Li & Li, 2011). Moreover, the speaker and audience may or may not enjoy similar social status or have similar education backgrounds. In short, liaison interpreting has three obvious characteristics, that is, “bi-directional, spontaneous discourse and interpersonal” (Bao, 2009, p. 12).
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CHAPTER III FAILURE ANALYSIS-A REGISTER THEORETICAL APPROACH ............................................. 15
3.1.1 Inaccurate Expression of Terms ........................... 15
3.1.2 Information Misinterpretation ............................... 17
CHAPTER IV IMPROVED PERFORMANCE WITH PRE-TASK PREPARATION UNDER REGISTER THEORY AND VERIFICATION ................ 25
4.1 Preparation under Register Theory .............................. 26
4.1.1 Preparation for Equivalence of Field .............................. 26
4.1.1.1 Glossary preparation ............................ 27
4.1.1.2 Background information preparation .................. 30
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION .................................... 44
5.1 Major Findings .................................. 44
5.2 Limitations ............................ 45
CHAPTER IV IMPROVED PERFORMANCE WITH PRE-TASK PREPARATION UNDER REGISTER THEORY AND VERIFICATION
4.1 Preparation under Register Theory
In this report, five aspects of pre-task preparation are proposed by the author based on Register Theory, namely, glossary preparation, background information and discourse structure knowledge preparation, general information preparation about speakers and audience, as well as agenda preparation. Proposed preparation helps the realization of register equivalence on spot, which contributes to the improvement of interpreting performance. To be specific, glossary preparation, background information and discourse structure knowledge preparation help the realization of equivalence of field between the source and target language. General information preparation about speakers and audience facilitates the realization of equivalence of tenor. And agenda preparation is conductive to realize equivalence of mode.
4.1.1 Preparation for Equivalence of Field
Interpreting is the one-time interpretation of the source language. Since the source language is said just once during the interpreting, the delivery on spot is the first and final rendition (P?chhacker, 2004). The quality of the interpreting is greatly affected by pre-task preparation. Sufficient pre-task preparation is of great significance. In this part, the author presents preparation from field perspective. Besides, preparation from tenor and mode perspective is illustrated in the next two parts respectively.
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CHAPTER V CONCLUSION
5.1 Major Findings
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