A Study On Interpretation From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

With China?s increasingly frequent and extensive exchange with the outside world, interpretation is playing a significant role in terms of politics, economy, culture, education, etc. Research on interpretation has developed by leaps and bounds. Studies on interpretation have become more and more interdisciplinary, integrating with pragmatic, psychological, sociological, cognitive studies, etc.This thesis is an attempt on study of interpretation from the perspective of Theory of Adaptation raised by Jef. Verschueren in his book Understanding Pragmatics in 1999. The theory provides a new perspective on pragmatics and also offers guidance in interpretation studies. According to the theory, language use is viewed as a process of continuous making of choices so as to approach points of satisfaction for communicative needs. In order to meet these needs of communication, language users are making choices under the framework of structural objects of adaptability and contextual correlates of adaptability.As an interlingual and intercultural communication medium, the success of the interpretation depends on the continuous making of choices adaptable to the specific linguist structure as well as linguistic and non-linguistic context. In interpretation, interpreters have to take into account the linguistic structure of the source and target languages, by choosing appropriate expressions in line with the requirements of lexical, syntactical level in order to precisely convey information to the listeners. Interpretation, in essence, is a communicative activity that takes place in a special context. Therefore, interpreters need to know well about the linguistic context and non-linguistic context so as to attain the highest equivalents between the source language and target language. In terms of interpreting practice, the study takes a wide selection in corpus, ranging from various aspects like escort interpretation, tourism interpretation, press conference interpretation, etc. By case studies and analysis, the author hopes to provide some insights into the future study.