The Handling Of Register In English To Chinese Consecutive Interpretation

Register in interpretation should not be overlooked. In English to Chinese consecutive interpretation, register varies with speakers who deliver speeches under various circumstances with diversified objectives and modes. It is important for interpreters to covey the original register appropriately in interpretation since it serves as a subtle and vital indicator of the speaker’s intent or emotions. Based on years of professional training as an interpreter, the author believes that an interpreter should remain flexible while dealing with different registers, instead of keeping register equivalence under any circumstances. This paper adopts Halliday’s theory on register in order to provide guidelines in conveying register in interpretation appropriately. Two cases of the author’s field practices were presented in order to explore the ways to establish appropriate register equivalence between target language and source language.This paper lays out the concept, the social constraints and the importance of register in accordance with relevant theories at first. Then it analyzes the root cause of the improper handling of register in two cases. Based on detailed analysis, principles and feasible suggestions to convey register in English to Chinese consecutive interpretation in a proper manner are proposed in this regard. In conclusion, the author believes that an interpreter can work on five aspects to convey register of the original speech appropriately in interpretation, namely lexical selection, grammatical and syntactic equivalence, tenor consistency, voice projection and interaction with speaker and audience.