| Interpretation has played an increasingly more important role in modern society.On the day when globalization is developing speedily, interpretation has graduallybecome the essential means of international communication and cooperation invarious fields and erected a bridge for people with different backgrounds. It may beused in the areas ranging from international relations, diplomatic policy, Chinesereform, and business negotiation to tourism, visit as well as catering culture. Againstthis backdrop, research on interpretation has got close attention from scholars at homeand abroad. At the beginning, it was without theoretical guidance. But now it hasadvanced towards the direction of interdisciplinary study step by step and integratedwith many disciplines like psychology, anthropology, cognition, education, sociology.Whether the research on interpretation is monodisciplinary or interdisplinary, however,interpretation is still a kind of communicating activity under the dynamic context. Inthe process of interpretation, as the intermediary of communicating parties, theinterpreter has to, on the basis of grasping real meaning of utterances, chooselanguage suitable to habitual form of expression and made effective conveyance inorder to achieve smooth communication.Adaptation theory was put forward by Jef.Versehueren, a Belgian linguist andsecretary general of International Pragmatics Association. In his book UnderstandingPragmatics, he attempted to study the use of language from a new angle. He believesthat the reason why language users make various appropriate choices in usinglanguage is that language is characterized by the variability, negotiability andadaptability of language. This thesis tries to analyze the adaptation in the process ofinterpretation from a new perspective by the application of adaptation theory. It alsoattempts to prove that adaptation theory has a strong bearing on interpretation andvery strong explanatory power over interpretation. From the standpoint of adaptability of language, this thesis is going to make analysis of choice-making in target languagefrom four angles, namely, contextual correlates of adaptability, structural objects ofadaptability, dynamic adaptability and salience of adaptation in interpretation.There are altogether five chapters in the thesis. The first two chapters consist ofintroduction and literature review. In the third chapter, a general introduction ofinterpretation will be given, including definition of interpretation, categorization ofinterpretation and features of it. Then, the core of this thesis, the application ofadaptation theory in interpretation will be on stage from the four perspectivesmentioned above. In this chapter, the author will cite many examples in such fields asdaily life, ceremony and reception, business negotiation, politics and economy,international conference, etc. to show the phenomena of adaptation existing ininterpreting activities, so as to prove the strong explanatory power over and guidingsignificance to interpretation. In the final conclusion, it will be pointed out thatadaptation theory, as a general pragmatic theory, could serve as guidance forinterpretation. And interpreter should make conscious adaptation by choosingappropriate words in interpretation in order to meet the goal of precise transmission ofinformation.Up to now, the studies on application of adaptation theory in interpretation havenot been deep and systematic enough in academic circles. So the thesis aims toanalyze interpretation in a new light and prove the great significance of adaptationtheory to interpretation. The interpreter could apply adaptation theory to interpretationfor better and smoother cross-cultural communication. At last, the limitations andproblems worth further study will be dealt with. In addition, what should particularlybe pointed out is that the interpretation involved in this thesis means all butsimultaneous interpretation. |
