On The Subjectivity Of The Interpreter In IPA In The Light Of Interpretive Theory

With its rapid political and economic development, China has enjoyed anever-rising international status. China’s international exchanges with other countriesin politics, economics and culture are getting increasingly frequent. Interpretation, aspecial oral communicative activity, plays a vital role in cross-cultural communication.It aims to act as a bridge connecting people who speak different languages fromdifferent cultures. Interpretation for Political Affairs (IPA), an important form ofinterpretation, has gained more attention in recent years given the increasingfrequency of international political communication. Since IPA mostly takes place inimportant occasions related to national images and political and economic interestsuch as international conference, meeting, political negotiations and press conference,it poses bigger challenges to interpreters. In this case, interpreters are required topresent an easily understandable target-text by crossing cultural barriers whilemaintaining the essence of source-text to the largest extent, so as to reach the mostoptimal communicative effect.The interpretive theory holds that interpretation consists of three procedures,namely comprehension, de-verbalization and re-expression. The core of this theory isthe differentiation between the linguistic meaning and non-verbal sense of thelanguage. It is the non-verbal sense expressed through the language that an interpreterneeds to convey instead of the linguistic sense of the language. In this sense,understanding and expressing non-verbal sense is the theoretical foundation of theexistence and exertion of the subjectivity of IPA interpreters. This thesis, from theperspective of the subjectivity of interpreters and based on text analysis and samplestudy, aims to discuss that it is not only reasonable but also necessary for interpretersto properly exert their subjectivity in IPA. This thesis also draws a conclusion throughcomparative study that major units of translation in IPA are words and sentences. Dueto the seriousness of the subject, policy-related content and the sensitiveness of thelanguage, interpreters enjoy relatively lower flexibility in terms of subjectivity in IPA. This thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter briefly introduces theresearch background, research target and method; Chapter Two reviews someprevious studies on interpreters’ subjectivity and the interpretive theory related to thestudy of this thesis. Chapter Three, based on the study of some examples of IPA,analyzes how interpreters exert subjectivity in the three phases of comprehension,de-verbalization and re-expression. It is the major part of the thesis. The next chapterexplores the requirement for IPA interpreters and strategies used in IPA, for instance,domestication and free interpreting, which help interpreters to give full play to theirsubjectivity and flexibly cope with difficulties and obstacles in interpretation, thusfacilitating the successful exchanges and interaction of two parties. The fifth chapterconcludes the whole thesis.