Abstract
Simultaneous interpreting contains various different layers of strategy plan at any given point of time for the practitioner. And history and culture speeches, such as the ones in China in general and in Beijing in particular, may be rather unique from the perspective of language, and may not have much “equivalence” in other cultures. It is therefore a challenge for simultaneous interpreting in message conveyance. That may mean that it is necessary to make strategy plan before the conference starts and as the conference going on in order to appropriately convey the message. This paper uses borrowed theories from psychology and management to the creation of strategy plan model of simultaneous interpreting. It attempts to find out the strategy model of simultaneous interpreting by analyzing a professional interpreter’s performance working on three speeches of history and culture of Beijing and by analyzing the interview with the interpreter. Based upon the review of the literature and the analysis of the transcript of both the interpreting and the interview, a model of strategy plan of simultaneous interpreting is then proposed to facilitate the practice.
Highlights
Beijing historical and cultural speeches are considered difficult by professional interpreters, which is clearly shown in the interview with a CATTI Level I1 interpreter in this study
Research questions of this study are: (1) What are challenges in interpreting of Beijing historical and cultural speeches from the interpreter’s perspective? (2) What are the possible strategies adopted by the interpreter in interpreting Beijing historical and cultural speeches? (3) What is the possible model of strategy plan in simultaneous interpreting?
Because of the diversity and multitude of possible speeches relevant to Beijing historical and cultural speeches, it is decided that this study will choose some representatives with the following features: (1) the content of the speech should be about Beijing history and culture; (2) the style of the speaker should be typical Chinese, which is clearly different from the speech structure and common ways of expression of normal international conferences
Summary
Beijing historical and cultural speeches are considered difficult by professional interpreters, which is clearly shown in the interview with a CATTI Level I1 interpreter in this study. The interpreter, when interpreting something she was familiar with, would unconsciously make forecast on what the speaker was going to say, and making a fairly adequate plan for the incoming segments of the speech, though problems do exist from time to time When she was interpreting something she was less familiar with, it seems that her performance was greatly undermined by the unfamiliar concepts, which she called “words”, presenting a confusion of strategies with completely different nature. Definition of several concepts should be clarified in order to have a discussion on the strategy plan in simultaneous interpreting of Beijing historical and cultural speeches. 152 Hairuo Wang: Strategy Planning in Simultaneous Interpreting -- with Beijing Historical and Cultural Speeches as Examples at almost the same speed with the speaker. It is a type of speech reflecting what existed and exists in Beijing, of various aspects of history and current society of Beijing and what is rarely seen in non-Chinese cultures
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