Lecture 4 模拟演练在线视频

Hello everyone

Welcome to the online course

Interpreting: theory and practice

I’m your lecturer Catherine

In previous lectures

we learned several strategies of interpreting

including syntactic linearity

language reorganization and repetition

In this lecture

let’s apply these skills to practice

Here are several examples

The suggested answers will not be given immediately

Rather

I advise you to read them and decide by yourself

which strategy should be used

to interpret them and why

Example 1

It is a sign for me

that the forum goes from strength to strength

and I believe

it is playing a key role in the relations

between our two countries

as confirmed by the Prime Minister

in our call on him this morning

How would you interpret this sentence?

If you still remember what I mentioned

about sense groups in lecture two

you’ll find that there are five sense groups

in this example

Try to convert each sense group

into Chinese and see whether

they’ll express coherent meaning

What have you found?

From what you did just now

you’ll notice that literal rendering

does make sense in this example

In this case

you can safely use syntactic linearity

to interpret this sentence

rather than think about language reorganization

because the immediacy

is always one of the priorities in interpreting

So the target language goes like this

这是一个迹象

表明我们的论坛越来越成功

我相信

论坛在我们两国关系中扮演着一个关键的角色

首相在我们今早拜访他时就证实了这一点

Example 2

十月的上海

阳光明媚

秋高气爽

来自35个国家和地区的1,300多名比赛选手

参加了在沪举行的本世纪最后一届

世界中学生运动会

Try to interpret this sentence into English by yourself

and think about how to make the target language

acceptable to target audience

In interpreting this sentence

you must be familiar with one difference

between Chinese and English in ways of thinking

Chinese people tend to describe the macro context first

before giving detailed information

On the contrary

in English

specifics

namely SVO (subject, verb, object), are presented first

The highlighted messages in this example

are supporting statements

serving as adverbial modifier

and cannot be transferred to the target language

without adjusting the order

Therefore

the technique of language reorganization

should be adopted in interpreting this sentence

This sentence can be interpreted into

In October

the weather in Shanghai is sunny and refreshing

More than 1,300 players

from 35 countries and regions

attended the World

High School Students Sports Meeting in Shanghai

which is the last games

of this kind of this century

In the target language

“more than 1,300 players” serve as the subject

and the non-restrictive attributive clause

is used to give further explanation to this event

Example 3

Premier Li

一是建设创新政府

依靠改革开放使经济充满活力

Please read this sentence and try to identify

an evident feature

This example is one of the goals proposed

by premier Li Keqiang to build the government

If you’re into work reports

you’ll be familiar with one of its features

that is

the omission of the subject

Whereas

the omission of the subject is rare in English

Thus

in interpreting this sentence

you need to add a subject

to make the sentence complete

Here’s the suggested target version

First

we need to build an innovative government

so that we can further the issue of the vitality

of economic society through

reform and opening up

The word “we” is added to serve as the subject

so that the target listeners

can learn who performs the act

This is what we call “addition”

Compare with your own version and find out

how your interpretation is different

from the suggested target language

Now

let’s try something a bit difficult

We’ll listen to a piece of audio

and you need to interpret it

into the target language

You can either do simultaneous interpreting

or consecutive interpreting

This audio consists of four sentences

but the language is simple and the speaker

speaks at a slow rate

So it’s not difficult to follow

This is my demo

in the form of consecutive interpreting

至于我们美国人

你们会认为我们太看重个人主义和个人利益

这样可能会牺牲集体利益

甚至会损害社会的和谐

是的

但你们不必担忧

我们美国人的工作理念更强调个人主义

我们一般重视的是结果和成就

而不是过程

We’ve done so much simulation practice

in this lecture

involving the skills of syntactic linearity

and language reorganization

In actual interpreting

you may meet with varying situations

in which other techniques need to be adopted

Do more practice after class

to strength your interpreting ability

Another thing I’d like to remind you

is that interpreting ability requires

persistence and diligence

It’s not wise to expect a remarkable progress

within a short period period of time

This is the end of this lecture

See you soon