A Study on the Strategy of Chinese-English Consecutive Interpreting of Beijing Historical and Cultural Speeches

Abstract

Historical and cultural speeches are considered a challenge in Chinese to English interpretation, as each language describes the world in a different way. Therefore, Beijing historical and cultural speeches are believed to have high level of difficulty in terms of interpretation. This study was aimed at investigating the strategies used in interpreting Beijing historical and cultural speeches. Based on the literature review, two models of interpretation are established, and three cases of interpreting strategy of Beijing historical and cultural speeches based on the models are analyzed.

Strategy Planning in Simultaneous Interpreting -- with Beijing Historical and Cultural Speeches as Examples

“…Jones [4: 14-21] categorized four types of speeches commonly seen in international conferences, namely, reasoned logical argument, narrative speech, persuasive speech, and rhetorical speech. Wang [16] made this division of speech type a very important component of strategy for consecutive interpreting of Beijing historical and cultural speeches. Thirdly, anticipating specific words or phrases in individual sentences to understand the direction of the sentence.…”

“…The framework of analysis is based upon: (1) Jones [4] proposition of the three levels of anticipation; and (2) Wang's [16] strategy model of consecutive interpreting. Therefore, three different levels of analysis on interpreting strategy are identified: (1) strategies related to the general structure and thrust of the speech which is relevant to the context.…”