On the Consecutive Interpreting of Chinese Governmental Discourse from the Perspective of Adaptation Theory: The Interpreting of Premier Li Keqiang Meets the Press in 2022 as an Example

Abstract

The consecutive interpreting of governmental discourse shoulders the responsibility to represent the official stance of the country, and the seriousness of the discourse puts forward higher standards for interpreting output: interpreters should reasonably choose and adapt to various internal and external factors of both the source language and target language in order to assume the role of an accurate, authoritative, and immediate intermediary of information transfer. Adaptation theory just provides interpreters with standards for making choices and adaptations. Taking Verschueren’s adaptation theory as the theoretical framework, this study analyzes the consecutive interpreting of Premier Li Keqiang Meets the Press in 2022, a representative example of consecutive interpreting of Chinese governmental discourse, from the angles of contextual correlates of adaptability, structural objects of adaptability, and salience of the adaptation processes, aiming to explore how could interpreters adapt through language choices in Chinese governmental discourse, and to reveal the adaptation theory’s role as the standard and guidance for consecutive interpreting.