On Press Conference Interpretation From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

With the rapid development of China’s economy and the rising influence of China oninternational stage, the world, especially foreign media, pay close attention to the economic,political and diplomatic initiatives taken by the Chinese government. Press conferencesduring NPC and CPPCC sessions have become an important window for western countriesto know about China. The interpretation of the press conferences directly affects exchangesand mutual understanding between China and the outside world. With a2011Premier PressConference as the corpus, the paper will analyze the application of adaptation theory inconsecutive interpretation. According to Verschueren in his Understanding Pragmatics,language use consists of continuous making of choices. The reason why language users areable to make continuous and appropriate choices in the communication process is thatlanguage itself has three properties: variability, negotiability and adaptability. Linguisticadaptation theory systematically and comprehensively explains the dynamic process oflanguage use. The paper has made an effort in the exploration of the application andevaluation of adaptation theory in press conference interpreting from the pragmatic andcross-discipline perspectives. The paper has provided a new arena for the research on pressconference interpretation and the corpus study has some value in the research andinstruction of interpreting.This paper is divided into five parts. Part One introduces the research background,literature review, the purposes, significance and methods of the study, and the mainstructure of the thesis. Part Two is adaptation to linguistic context in PCI, which introducesthe content of adaptation theory and the related contextual adaptability mentioned in thepaper. Contextual correlation can be divided into linguistic context and communicativecontext. In terms of adaptation to linguistic context, the author analyzes language users andchoices of language、code and style in PCI. Part Three is adaptation to communicativecontext in PCI. In this part, the author analyzes the mental world、social world and physicalworld in PCI, and finally comprehensively understands the dynamic process of PCI. Part Four is adaptation to cultural context in PCI. The author analyzes the salience of culturaladaptability in PCI and then talk about cultural barriers and strategies to interpret culturalcontext in PCI. Part Five is the conclusion. It illustrates major findings of the study,limitations of the study and its implications for further studies.