An Adaptation-theoretic Account Of Omission As An Interpreting Strategy

As a trans-cultural and cross-linguistic communicative activity, interpreting is acontinuous choice-making and adaptation process for the purpose of communication.Omission is an optional strategy in the choice-making process. FollowingVerschueren’s Adaptation Theory, taking the oral interpretation of Premier Wen’s2012Press Conference during NPC&CPPCC sessions as an example, this paper isintended to analyze the use of omission in consecutive interpreting. From theperspective of contextual adaptation, the author summarizes major communicativecontextual factors (the audience, time limitation, cognitive load of the interpreter andcultural difference) and linguistic contextual factors (expression mode and structure ofthe target language) due to which the interpreter needs to make omissions (omission ofknown information, repetition, category words and less important information) inorder to convey the information appropriately, idiomatically and flexibly. The authorhopes that this thesis can serve as a reference for interpreters to make adaptation anduse omission appropriately during the dynamic process of interpreting.