（英语语言文学专业论文）接续口译中最佳关联的实现.pdf

重庆大学硕士学位论文 中文摘要 i 摘摘 要要 本文从关联理论的角度来研究接续口译中最佳关联的实现，主要介绍关联理 论并且侧重探讨关联理论在接续口译表达阶段的应用。交际是一个明示推理的 过程，最佳关联是指话语理解时付出有效的努力之后所获得的足够的语境效果， 其中交际意图的传达对于交际成功和最佳关联的实现非常重要。关联理论对口译 是富有解释力的，其解释力表现在口译过程中的理解和表达阶段，由于现有的研 究较多涉及理解阶段，本论文着重于从探讨口译过程中表达阶段中最佳关联的实 现。作者把关联理论应用于接续口译当中，通过对口译的实例研究，本文论证了 关联理论对接续口译特别是其表达阶段的解释力，并且验证了针对不同语言现象 不同口译策略的使用的合理性。 关键词：关联理论，接续口译，关联理论与接续口译，最佳关联，交际意图 重庆大学硕士学位论文 abstract ii abstract this paper is mainly to introduce relevance theory and its application to the expressing phase in consecutive interpretation. it begins with discussions on the nature of communication, which demonstrates how relevance theory accounts on consecutive interpretation. based on this approach, the realization of optimal relevance is surveyed and some interpretation strategies are elaborated upon. the optimal relevance refers to the adequate contextual effects people obtain after processing effort. the convey of the speakers communicative intention is important in the realization of optimal relevance. in consecutive interpretation, as the approach of interlingual communication and also an ostensive- inferential process, the interpreter who acts as the receiver of the original communicative information and the communicator to the target readers, still needs to comply with the principle of relevance. finally, an analysis of specific interpretations examples is included to survey the application of relevance theory in consecutive interpretation. this paper proves the interpretive role that the relevance theory plays in expressing phase of consecutive interpretation and the feasibility of certain interpreting strategies adopted in various language phenomena. key words: relevance theory, consecutive interpretation, relevance-theoretic accounts on consecutive interpretation, optimal relevance，communicative intention 重庆大学硕士学位论文 chapter one introduction 1 chapter one introduction with the development of the world economy, communication between different countries becomes more vital all over the world. this calls for special needs for the existence of translation since people from different countries may speak different languages. furthermore, in the modern societies, more and more political meetings , business meetings and various kinds of fairs are held in certain countries, the needs of face-to-face communications bring the prosperity of interpretation. under these circumstances, translation, especially interpretation, as an interlingual communicative approach, plays an extremely important role in improving international communication and understanding. since the appropriate principles could help translators produce satisfactory translation versions, there used to be endless discussions about the principles of translation. these discussions include: yan fus three translation principles “faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance”(qtd in jiang zhiwen some is new but hardly connected to an individuals representation, which means the processing cost is too large for too little a benefit; other is not only new but also connected with old information, which is very important for communication. further new information can be obtained if the interconnected new and old information are used together as premises in the inference process. they (2001:49) note “when the processing of new information gives rise to such a multiplication effect, we call it relevant. the greater the multiplication effect, the greater the relevance”. if we want to be assured of somebodys attention in communication, we must behave in certain ways. the behaviors which make the intention manifest to another person are manifest-ostensive behaviour or ostension. they (2001:49) propose that “showing someone something is a case of ostension”. however, recognizing the intention behind the ostension is necessary for efficient information processing. that is to say knowing the intention of the communicator is very important for successful 重庆大学硕士学位论文 chapter two a brief introduction of relevance theory 7 communication. in this sense, the awareness of relevance in communication contributes to a successful communication between communicator and audience. in conclusion, sperber (2001:63) defines ostensive-inferential communication as follows: “ostensive-inferential communication: the communicator produces a stimulus which makes it mutually manifest to communicator and audience that the communicator intends, by means of this stimulus, to make manifest or more manifest to the audience a set of assumptions .” in the process of deduction, according to sperber and wilson, our cognitive environment or concepts in our mind are connected with three entries, or three sets of information: logical entry, encyclopedic entry and lexical entry. the logical entry consists of a set of deductive rules, each formally describing a set of input and output assumptionsa set of premises and conclusions. the encyclopedic entry contains information about the extension and/or denotation of the conceptabout the objects, events and/or properties which instantiate it. the lexical entry contains information about the natural-language lexical item used to express it. 2.2 relevance translation relevance theory has great influence on the field of cognitive and pragmatic research in the western countries. from the 1980s, cognitive science has been an important part in the research field. with the aim to lay a foundation for a unified theory of cognitive science and together with the attempt to shift the whole center of gravity of pragmatic theory to a general theory of cognition, dan sperber and deirdre wilson have published relevance: communication and cognition (1986/1995). in this book, they have proposed relevance theory (rt). since the first edition of relevance: communication and cognition in 1986, they refined the book in 1995 to provide some modifications with the attempt to address the comments elicited after the first edition. with the influence of the authors and other scholars in western countries, researchers in china have also conducted a series of research studies in this field. at the end of the 1980s, some introductions about relevance theory appeared in chinese foreign language journals. some other researchers published papers relevant to the application of this theory, such as, zhang yafei( 1992), he ziran (1995,1997,1998), ran yongping (1997,1998), liu shaozhong (1997), liu jiarong (1997), and he gang (1996). among 重庆大学硕士学位论文 chapter two a brief introduction of relevance theory 8 these research studies, he ziran and ran yongping have contributed much to the introduction of relevance theory into china. they provide a guidance to understand relevant theory to chinese readers and scholars. except for the influence on the cognitive and pragmatic field, relevance theory has also influenced some other fields, including translation. before nida fully understood the role of rt, gutt, the student of wilson, published cognitive and relevance in 1989, and then publishes his doctoral paper: translation and relevance: cognition and context in 1991.his explanation of translation has opened a new era of translation and relevance. olsen (1992), kovacik (1994)and hjort-pedersen (1996)etc., are all researchers in this field. the chinese researcher lin kenan (1994) published a review to introduce gutts book, and he ziran (1996) pulishes a paper covering translation and pragmatics. all thses researches contribute to the application of relevance theory to the translation field and lay a foundation for relevance translation. in the research of translation with a relevant approach, lin kenan proposed that relevant theory can be very interpretive in translation, rui min deals with understanding strategies in interpretation, men jiangang focuses on the translatability of translation , and wang bin proposes the limit of relevant theory in the face of cultural omission. most important of all, zhao yanchun publishes an important issue which focuses on the interpretive role of relevant theory on translation. he has explained very fully the advantage of relevant translation and relevant translation modes. 2.2.1 principles of relevance the main focus of relevance theory is communication and cognition. it is neither rule-based nor maxim-based. instead, relevance theory is based on the following opinion: according to sperber and wilson, the receiver of the utterance may have a different understanding toward different content, context and implicature, but they cannot always fully understand all the meanings of the utterance. they only use one single and common principle to understand the utterance; this principle is adequate enough for him to ascertain the only feasible understanding. therefore, “every ace of ostensive communication communicates a presumption of its own optimal relevance.” (sperber new information strengthens the existing contextual assumptions; new information contradicts the existing contextual assumptions and rejects the old assumptions” (sperber it has only indirect effects on relevance. 2.2.3.2 processing effort except for contextual effect, a processing effort is also an important factor that helps to define the notion of relevance. the different degrees of accessibility of contextual assumptions make themselves felt by the amount of effort that their retrieval requires in a particular act of communication, which means the processing effort should be considered in assessing degrees of relevance. the processing effort is a negative factor: “other things being equal, the greater the processing effort, the lower the relevance” (sperber guide interpretation, ceremony interpretation, information interpretation, conference interpretation, negotiation interpretation, etc. to make the relevant concept of this paper clear, consecutive interpretation with a 重庆大学硕士学位论文 chapter three relevance theory accounts on consecutive interpretation 17 relevant account will be focused upon. consecutive interpretation (ci) is defined as the interpretation of a certain sense group (several sentences, a paragraph or even the whole passage, provided that it is not too long) after the speaker finishes it; therefore, the original presentation for part of it is closely followed by its corresponding interpretation. the speaker and the interpreter will take the floor alternatively. ci is the most widely used form on various occasions, i,e, ranging from state talks or negotiations to daily guidance or accompany of foreign tourists. ci is generally expected to exhibit a higher quality than simultaneous interpretation, as the consecutive interpreter has a relatively longer period of time to consider and arrange the information, and output it in the target language in a more appropriate and idiomatic way, while simultaneous interpreters are always under pressure to produce extemporarily. consecutive interpretation is a one-way interpretation, and it transfers information in units of sentences, and paragraphs. the speakers, due to various reasons, have to make continuous speeches and express information interpretively. on these occasions, the interpreter needs to translate what the speaker has said to an audience, in paragraphs in the time intervals of the speaker. another very important type is simultaneous interpretation, to quote from seleskovitch (1975) “in simultaneous interpretation the interpreter is isolated in a booth”. he speaks at the same time as the speaker and therefore has no need to memorize or jot down what is said. moreover, the process of analysis-comprehension and of reconstruction-expression are telescoped. the interpreter works on the message bit by bit, giving the portion he has understood while analyzing and assimilating the next idea.” while consecutive interpretation , to quote from seleskovith (1978:125), “in consecutive interpretation the interpreter does not start speaking until the original speaker has stopped. he therefore has time to analyze the message as a whole, which makes it easier for him to understand its meaning. the fact that he is there in the room, and that the speaker has stopped talking before he begins, means that he speaks to his listeners face to face and he actually becomes the speaker” . in all, if consecutive interpretation is surveyed with a relevant approach, it is not difficult to know that the interpreters analysis of the message is actually a making of contextual assumption with regard to the audience. the more successfully the interpreter is in predicting the contextual assumption of the audience, the more successful he can do in expressing the intention of the speaker to the audience, and thus achieve more easily the optimal relevance the interpretation. 重庆大学硕士学位论文 chapter three relevance theory accounts on consecutive interpretation 18 3.1.4 participants in interpretation if we are to conduct research on interpretation, we cannot avoid judging the participants of interpretation: speaker, interpreter and audience. a complete and successful interpretation should be successful with respect to all three of the participants, namely, speaker, interpreter and audience. we can explain their relationships as follows: the interpreter finds out the relevance of the speakers utterance and the context, and then makes inference according to this relevance, finally achieves the goal of understanding, that is, to understand the intentions of the speaker. at the end, the interpreter passes on the intentions of the speaker in a manifest way. actually, the communicative activity in the interpretation can be classified into two phases: the first phase of communication between the speaker and the interpreter, and the second phase of communication between the interpreter and the audience. in the first phase communication, the speaker passes on what they intend to express to the receptor (mainly the interpreter), then interpreter makes inference about the utterance and induces the meaning of the utterance and the intentions behind the utterance of the speaker. in the second phase communication between the interpreter and the audience, the interpreter passes on the meaning of the speaker and also the intentions behind the utterance to the audience in a manifest way in target language. in such a process of interpretation, the interpreters role becomes very important since he has participated in both processes, so the special role of the interpreter will be illustrated in the following part. 3.2 dual roles of interpreter as to the previous analysis, the interpreter is involved in both two phases in communicationunderstanding the speaker and expressing the intentions to the audience. in this sense, we can know that interpreter plays dual role in the process of interpretation. in the first phase of communication, he is the receptor, he receives the information in source language from the speaker. while in the second phase of communication, he becomes the communicator, he passes on the information and the communicative intentions of the speaker to the audience in target language to make the communication successful. if the interpreter can pass on both the informative intention and the communicative intention in a way that the audience can accept without processing too much efforts, the interpretation can achieve optimal relevance and satisfy 重庆大学硕士学位论文 chapter three relevance theory accounts on consecutive interpretation 19 both the speaker and the audience. in interpretation, the three participants of the interpretation process are speaker, interpreter and audience, and the interpreter is both speaker and hearer. the difference is that the listening and the speaking of the speaker and the audience are alternative，but the interpreter always hears first and then speaks, it is a continuous activity. the speaker and the audience tend to separately understand the utterance information by their own mother tongue with the help of the interpreter. the interpreter, however, faces greater challenges because the information he receives comes from different cultures in which the differences between the language and culture is obvious to the native speaker. however, the language communication is aimed at communication, so the communication between the speaker and the audience is for themselves but not for interpreter, the interpreter is actually plays a role of passing on the informative intention and the communicative intention. according to relevance theory, if the speaker and the hearer intend to communicate, they have to find the relevant information of the utterance according to their own contextual assumptions respectively. in interpretation, however, this communication is fulfilled with the help of the interpreter. actually, the interpreter is to carry on the job of finding this relevance. it is easy to see, the interpreter uses his own contextual assumption which might be different from the assumption of the speaker and the assumption of the hearer. this, however, causes the result that the source language information and the information the interpreter conveys could not be totally equivalent. however, if the interpreter can try his best to approach the contextual effects that the target language hearer can easily accept via the contextual assumption he uses in understanding the utterance, the gap between the contextual effects would be bridged. the closer the interpreter approaches to the contextual effects, the more successful is the interpretation. that is, a successful interpretation is the interpretation in which the interpreter can fulfill the double roles successfully. 3.33.3 context in interpretation this part is mainly to define the context in relevance approach and emphasizes the predic