The Positioning Of Temporal References In Chinese Sign Language Interpreting

Although TV programs equipped with sign language interpreting (SLI) have grown rapidly, their quality is hardly satisfactory. At the same time, there are few studies on the syntax of Chinese Sign Language (CSL), even fewer on CSL interpreting strategies. In contrast, the syntax difference between Chinese and English and interpreting strategies in Chinese-English/English-Chinese interpreting have been well researched.One thing particularly attracts the author’s attention is that the interpreter has to use such strategies as "following the order" or "strategic addition" when encounters temporal references in interpreting, which come in different syntactic position in Chinese and English. Meanwhile, the author finds out that the syntactic position of temporal references has not been examined in CSL yet, neither has its interpreting strategies. Therefore, the author seeks to study the positioning of temporal references in CSL interpreting.By reviewing studies in English, Chinese, American Sign Language (ASL) and Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL), the author deduces that temporal references as frame-setting topics should come in sentence-initial position in CSL. This presumption is verified by an elicited experiment with8Deaf informants. They were asked to do4picture-descriptions and dialogues on4topics. These data were collected in videotapes, transcribed into Chinese, and segmented by Deaf consultant and the author with the help of Elan, a professional software program for sign language studies. After that, the author conducts a corpus-based case study:by following Gile’s Effort Model, the author gives such suggestions as "following the order","strategic omission" and "delaying response" to several examples extracted from the corpus "Focus On", which is based on a CCTV news program with SLI. Suggestions for English-CSL interpreting and ASL-CSL interpreting are also proposed.