Audience Design in Interpreted Press Conferences (Chinese-English):
Face Management and Information Management
Hui Liu
Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Heriot-Watt University
School of Management and Languages
March 2010
The copyright in this thesis is owned by the author. Any quotation from the
thesis or use of any of the information contained in it must acknowledge this
thesis as the source of the quotation or information.
ABSTRACT
The aim of this study is to investigate the potential influence of audience design on
interpreters’ behaviour in the genre of interpreted government press conferences. The
interpreters of these government press conferences are required to follow the principle of
‘faithfulness, accuracy and completeness’ but casual observation suggests that the
interpreters do depart from this principle. The hypothesis on which the present study is
founded is that audience design, that is the adjustment of a speaker’s output to suit a
particular participation framework, is involved in interpreters’ performance. In order to test
this hypothesis, the theoretical framework of the study draws upon theories from
interpreting studies, sociolinguistics and pragmatics. The investigation is carried out
through a study of participation frameworks, face management strategies and information
management strategies in an authentic corpus constructed by the author, comprising three
interpreted and televised press conferences held by the Chinese Prime Minister and the
Foreign Minister. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are chosen to analyze the
selected parameters in order that recurrent patterns can be identified. The study confirms
the hypothesis that the interpreters’ behaviour varies in accordance with the particular
audience (i.e. the primary intended receiver) that they have in mind to serve at any given
moment. This study shows that human factors are involved and challenges the public
perception that interpreters are mere sounding machines with little or no personal agency.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It has been a real privilege to work with my supervisors, Prof. Ian Mason and Prof. Ursula
Boser. I would like to express my most sincere gratitude for their invaluable advice, trust
and encouragement at every stage of this research. In particular, I am greatly indebted to
Prof. Mason who has continued to supervise me beyond his retirement. His unfailing
guidance has helped me through all the challenging moments of this research. I have
thoroughly enjoyed working with him and he has set a great example for me as an
outstanding professor, supervisor and person. What I have learnt from him will always
benefit me.
I am grateful to my interpreting colleagues for kindly granting their time for the interviews.
My thanks go particularly go to Prof. Ruojin Wang who has provided valuable assistance in
arranging the interviews and in providing insightful thoughts on interpreting.
I can never thank my parents enough for their love and support. My gratitude is also due to
my friends and colleagues who have been there for me. My particular thank goes to Mario
who has made my PhD journey much more enjoyable and who has always had faith in me.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the School of Management
and Languages Scholarship.
谨以此论文献给我亲爱的父亲和母亲！
Table of Contents
List of Abbreviations............................................................................................................. iii
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 1
1.1 Initial Observations .................................................................................................. 1
1.2 Hypothesis, Aims and Objectives ............................................................................ 3
1.3 Content and Structure of the Thesis ......................................................................... 5
CHAPTER TWOTHEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: INVESTIGATING AUDIENCE
DESIGN ................................................................................................................................. 7
2.1. Interpreting Studies ................................................................................................. 7
2.1.1 Dialogue Interpreting .................................................................................... 9
2.1.2 Press Conference Interpreting as a Genre ................................................... 10
2.1.3 Skopos Theory ............................................................................................ 11
2.1.4 Community of Practice ............................................................................... 13
2.1.5 Interpreter’s Visibility, Role and Interpreting Norms ................................. 15
2.2. Participation Framework, Footing and Audience Design ..................................... 19
2.2.1 Participation Framework ............................................................................. 19
2.2.2 Audience Design ......................................................................................... 23
2.3 Face Management .................................................................................................. 29
2.3.1 Speech Acts and Grice’s Cooperative Principle ......................................... 29
2.3.2 Face management: face and politeness theory ............................................ 33
2.3.2.1 Goffman’s concept of face ............................................................. 33
2.3.2.2 Lakoff’s Politeness Rules............................................................... 34
2.3.2.3 Brown and Levinson’s Politeness theory ....................................... 35
2.3.2.4 Sociological Factors—P, D, R ....................................................... 42
2.3.2.5 Critiques of Brown and Levinson .................................................. 45
2.3.2.6 Spencer-Oatey’s rapport management ........................................... 48
2.3.2.7 The Chinese concept of face and politeness .................................. 53
2.4 Information Management ....................................................................................... 58
2.4.1 Relevance Theory........................................................................................ 58
2.4.2 Presupposition ............................................................................................. 63
2.4.3 Explicitation ................................................................................................ 67
2.5 Interactional Features/Parameters .......................................................................... 73
2.6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 74
CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY AND DATA DESCRIPTION ............................. 76
3.1. Major Methodological Orientations ...................................................................... 76
3.2 Corpus and Data ..................................................................................................... 78
3.2.1 Description of the Corpus ........................................................................... 79
3.2.2. Press Conferences as a Genre .................................................................... 80
3.2.3. A Community of Practice........................................................................... 85
3.2.3.1 Selection and Training ................................................................... 86
3.2.3.2 Standards Guidelines ...................................................................... 87
3.2.3.3 Turn-taking..................................................................................... 88
3.2.3.4 Visibility......................................................................................... 89
3.3 Interactional Goals and Sociality Rights ................................................................. 90
i
3.3.1 The journalists ............................................................................................. 90
3.3.2 The Minister ................................................................................................ 90
3.3.3. The Interpreter ............................................................................................ 91
3.4 Specific Methodological Approaches .................................................................... 92
3.4.1. Shifts .......................................................................................................... 93
3.4.2．Participation Frameworks ........................................................................ 94
CHAPTER FOUR FACE MANAGEMENT ....................................................................... 98
4.1. Participation Framework 1 and PF1a (Chinese questions) ................................... 98
4.1.1. Terms of Address and Deference ............................................................... 99
4.1.1.1 Non-vocative use of deferent terms of address ............................ 104
4.1.2 Summary ................................................................................................... 106
4.1.3 Other Aspects of deference ....................................................................... 107
4.1.3.1 Deference in Openings and Closings of Chinese Questions ........ 107
4.1.4 Pronoun choice .......................................................................................... 110
4.1.4.1 Summary ...................................................................................... 114
4.1.5 Indirectness to Directness ......................................................................... 115
4.1.6 Conventional Indirectness ......................................................................... 122
4.1.7 Summary ................................................................................................... 127
4.2 Participation Framework 2 and PF2b (English questions) ................................... 127
4.2.1 Terms of address ....................................................................................... 128
4.2.2 Summary ................................................................................................... 130
4.2.3 Pronoun Choice ......................................................................................... 130
4.2.4 Summary ................................................................................................... 133
4.2.5 Directness to Indirectness ......................................................................... 133
4.2.6 Summary ................................................................................................... 140
4.3 Participation Framework 3 and PF3c (Replies) .................................................. 141
4.3.1 Terms of Address ...................................................................................... 142
4.3.2 Pronoun Choice ......................................................................................... 144
4.4 Face-work Analysis of Longer Sequences ........................................................... 147
4.5 Summary .............................................................................................................. 161
CHAPTER FIVE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT ..................................................... 163
5. 1 Explicitation ........................................................................................................ 163
5.1.1 Explicitation in Participation Framework 1 .............................................. 164
5.1.2 Explicitation in Participation Framework 2 .............................................. 169
5.1.2.1 Summary ...................................................................................... 170
5.1.3 Explicitation in Participation Framework 3 (Replies) .............................. 171
5.1.3.1 Summary ...................................................................................... 179
5.2 Presupposition ...................................................................................................... 180
5.2.1 Summary ................................................................................................... 184
CHAPTER SIX FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION .......................................................... 186
6.1 Summary of aims, objectives and methods of study ............................................ 186
6.2 Findings of the study ............................................................................................ 186
6.2.1 Findings under Face Management ............................................................ 187
6.2.2 Findings under Information Management ................................................. 189
6.3 Original contribution ............................................................................................ 194
6.4 Limitation and indications for further research .................................................... 196
REFERENCES.................................................................................................................. 198
APPENDICES ................................................................................................................... 217
ii
List of Abbreviations
AD: Audience design
CI: Consecutive interpreting
CofP: Community of practice
FTA: Face-threatening act
H: Honorific (data transcription)
IPC: Interpreted press conference
I: Interpreter
J: Journalist
M: Minister
PF: Participation Framework
Q: Question
R: Reply/Replies
SI: Simultaneous interpreting
ST: Source text
TT: Target text
T: Turn (e.g. R1T1=Reply 1 Turn 1)
Note: ST and TT are normally used only for written text. In this thesis, we are using them
for convenience to refer to the source speech (interpreter’s input) and the translated speech
(interpreter’s output) respectively.
iii
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
1.1 Initial Observations
In the past decade the Chinese government has shown its increased desire to interact with
the outside world so as to integrate itself into the world community. The initiation and then
the increased number of televised interpreted press conferences held by the Chinese Prime
Minister are part of this effort. Following 1998’s first televised interpreted Prime Minister’s
press conference, every year there has been one such event. A few years later the foreign
minister followed suit by holding a similar press conference always scheduled after the
Prime Minister’s press conferences. These conferences are usually scheduled in mid-March
after the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People's Political Consultative
Conference (CPPCC) have completed their annual sessions. The introduction of this new
mode of communication i.e. interpreted press conferences (see 3.2.2. Press Conferences as
a Genre) is considered to be very significant in how the Chinese government interacts with
the outside world.
Consecutive interpreting for the minister’s televised press conferences has attracted much
publicity and has become an emerging new genre i.e. press conference consecutive
interpreting (cf. press conferences in many European countries, where simultaneous
interpreting is more commonly in use). Such press conferences are recorded and published
in China for eager English learners. However, the data are almost solely commented on
from the perspective of and the accuracy of interpreting techniques (Hu 2006, Ren 2004,
Yuan 2005). The press conference interpreters have also been praised by the public for their
accuracy. A the National (China) Translation Qualifications Examination English Language
Expert Committee Member commented on the quality of the interpreters who work for the
press conferences of the present study as ‘undoubtedly represent[ing] my country’s best
translation level. They can be compared to the national team of translation’ (Ren 2004:61).
Indeed the requirement for accuracy as an absolute standard for interpreters is not just a
Chinese requirement. It is internationally recognized. For example, the AUSIT (Australian
Institute of Interpreters and Translators Incorporated) Code of Ethics states that they
(interpreters and translators) must:
1



relay accurately and completely all that is said by all parties in a meeting
- including derogatory or vulgar remarks, non-verbal clues, and anything
they know to be untrue;
not alter, add to or omit anything from the assigned work;
acknowledge and promptly rectify any interpreting or translation
mistakes….
AUSIT (1996 and 2007:2)
Members of AUSIT are mainly practising translators and interpreters. The Code has been
endorsed in Australia by the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and
Interpreters (NAATI) and other organisations. The AUSIT Code of Ethics is globally
recognized as setting standards for the profession.
The interpreters in the present study are all Chinese native speakers. Interviews with
Chinese government interpreters, who have very good knowledge of the (unwritten) code
of practice/norms for central government interpreting (at the ministerial level) interpreters,
confirm this view that faithfulness/忠实, completeness/完整 and accuracy/准确 are the
important principles to be observed by the interpreters who work for the minister’s press
conferences. (Zhao 2007; Qian 2008; Sun 2008; Li 2008). Faithfulness is understood to be
faithful to the source text. Completeness is understood to mean a complete representation of
the source text/not to leave anything out. Accuracy is understood to represent exactly what
is said in the source text. A clarification is needed here. In traditional Chinese thinking on
translation, faithfulness is often associated with loyalty. Tan (2009) discusses the concept
信(xin) and suggests that it is ‘loaded with cultural values in Chinese’(Tan 2009:293).
Among many possible translations of the term, he suggests ‘fidelity’, ‘loyal and loyalty’.
This association of faithfulness and loyalty still exists in Chinese translation studies. For
the interviewees cited above, however, faithfulness is not 信 (xin) but 忠实 (zhongshi),
which means to be faithful only to the source text. It does not include any connotation of
loyalty.
The AUSIT Code of Ethics and the unwritten code of practice of the Chinese central
government interpreters reflect representative views (see 2.1.5 for more discussions on
norms) about the interpreting standards as they are from a variety of sources. They provide
evidence that accuracy and completeness are commonly viewed as being of overriding
2
importance as an institutional requirement and in assessment, academic training and
interpreting practice in both China and western countries. Zhao et al, cited above, point out
that interpreters working for press conferences are instructed to be literal and complete.
However, as will be shown in this thesis, mismatches are observed in actual performance.
How widespread are these mismatches? Are they solely a problem of inaccuracy? Little
attention has been paid to such questions as whether the mismatches between the ST and
the TT are a result of interpreting strategy ( as suggested by Skopos theory, e.g. Nord
1997)，power relations and face concerns (Goffman 1967; Brown and Levinson 1987;
Spencer-Oatey 2000) and/or the target audience (Bell 1981)1. These potential factors are
presented as interactive features. In this thesis interpreting is seen as an interactive
phenomenon and it is at least possible that these factors may have influence over the
interaction and the interpreter’s behaviour. These are interesting dimensions that are worthy
of investigation beyond the concerns of faithfulness, accuracy and completeness, and this is
the motivation for carrying out the present study.
The focus of analysis in this research is on examining ST/TT mismatches and interactive
features in a corpus consisting of three interpreted press conferences. It will be claimed that
the way the interaction is managed by the speaker and the interpreter is a very important
feature in a genre where power relations also play an important part. The study is not
restricted to the mere description of how the interaction is carried out through the use of
linguistic devices, but more importantly it attempts to explore the reasons why certain
interactive strategies may be adopted.
1.2 Hypothesis, Aims and Objectives
Although interpreters at Chinese government press conferences are required to follow the
principle of faithfulness (in the sense of being faithful to the source text – see 1.1 above),
accuracy and completeness, it will be claimed that they regularly violate this principle.
Therefore, we need to study the circumstances when they deviate. One possibility would be
that they alter their style to match changes in the Participation Framework (Goffman 1981).
This is known as Audience Design (Bell 1984). It is the contention of this thesis that
1
The relevant theories will be reviewed in Chapter 2.
3
audience design, that is the adjustment of a speaker’s output to suit a particular
participation framework, is involved in interpreters’ performance.
In order to test this hypothesis, the aims and objectives are set in the following way.
The broad aims of the study are three-fold:
1. to investigate ST/TT mismatches in consecutive interpreting for televised press
conferences with the language combination of Chinese and English;
2. to investigate evidence of speaker and audience interaction in these speech events;
3. to investigate the potential influence of audience design on the performance of
interpreters.
The study endeavours to identify the patterns of linguistic features that are used as
parameters of interaction between participants in the speech event. In order to identify the
trend of patterns, a corpus-based methodology is chosen so that recurrent patterns can be
identified and quantified more clearly. Assuming that these patterns reflect decisions made
by interpreters, qualitative analysis is also conducted based on the frameworks of
pragmatics and discourse analysis. In summary, to attain the aims of the present study, the
specific objectives to be achieved are therefore as follows:

to construct a corpus of interpreted televised press conferences that is representative
of such events and transcribed for the purposes of analysis;

to construct a theoretical framework and identify a set of parameters which is
appropriate for the investigation of interaction in this corpus;

to provide evidence that the interpreters in the data are not always as accurate and
faithful as they are thought to be (see above);

to use the model for analysis to conduct both quantitative and qualitative analyses of
the data in an attempt to explore the evidence of the potential influence of audience
design on the performance of the interpreters;
4
1.3 Content and Structure of the Thesis
In Chapter 2 we seek to build a theoretical framework within which the investigation of
speaker-audience interaction and the potential correlation between audience design and
interpreting performance can be conducted. From this angle, we draw upon theories from
interpreting studies, sociolinguistics and pragmatics (for face management and information
management). Then the selected interactive parameters to be investigated in the present
study are reviewed and presented as a model for analysis.
Chapter 3 discusses the methodology orientations and describes the corpus to be
investigated. It starts with a rationale for the adoption of a corpus-based approach, and the
pros and cons of such methodology are reviewed. Press conferences as a genre are
introduced to provide details regarding the data. Then the data selection and transcription
methods are presented. For the convenience of the analysis, the three sets of participant
frameworks in the corpus are provided (e.g. the participant framework is different when the
minister is responding to questions from when the journalist is asking a question). Based on
Spencer-Oatey’s Rapport Management model (2000; 2004), preliminary assumptions
regarding the sociality rights and interactional goals of these speech events are provided.
The concept of the ‘translation shift’ provides us with a useful analytical tool for tracking
interpreter behaviour - though it has to be recognized that not all shifts are insightful.
Finally, obligatory shifts, optional shifts and preferred shifts are distinguished.
Chapters 4 and 5 form the core of the analysis. Face management and information
management are distinguished in the sense that the former is concerned with the work done
in speech to manage interpersonal and social relations while the latter is focused on
managing the flow of information. Chapters 4 and 5 analyse face management and
information management strategies respectively.
The analysis is organized according to the three sets of participation frameworks with a
view to detecting if there is a link between changes in participation frameworks and
changes in the interpreter’s behaviour. It gives numerical findings of selected interactive
parameters when they are countable and qualitative discussions when quantitative methods
cannot apply or are not useful. The parameters used for analysis include terms of address,
5
deference, pronoun choice, indirectness and directness. These choices are explained and
justified in section 2.5. The analysis provides not only examples of patterned features, but
counter-examples as well in order to assess the relative significance of each trend identified
and to avoid any bias deriving from selection of data to suit a particular case. In addition,
face management has been observed as the most important interactive strategy in the
present study, therefore, the last section of Chapter 4 provides an analysis of larger
sequences since the previous analysis section has focused on groups of small fragments
which illustrate each particular parameter. The larger sequences analysis provides complete
sequences in order to explore the accumulated effects of the various linguistic parameters
used.
Chapter 6 brings together the findings in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 in order to present and
discuss a more comprehensive account of the interpreting strategies, their potential
correlation with the target audience and its influence on the interpreting performance. To
assist in summarizing the findings of the present study, we provide Interpretation Reception
Frameworks (IRF1, IRF2, and IRF3) which focus on the reception end of the framework
when the interpreter is the speaker. The thesis concludes with an evaluation of the entire
study and suggestions for future research.
6
CHAPTER TWO THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: INVESTIGATING
AUDIENCE DESIGN
This chapter is dedicated to a review of relevant studies for the construction of a theoretical
framework for this thesis. It consists of five sections. The first part (2.1) is focused on
interpreting studies. It will not be appropriate to review the whole of interpreting studies
work because it will be beyond the scope of this study. We are going to review only the
works in interpreting studies which are relevant to interpreting as an interactive process.
The second part is focused on the study of audience design, with introduction of the
participation framework. Then we review face management with politeness at its centre
(2.3), and information management, with relevance theory, explicitation and presupposition
as its focus (2.4). Based on these models, the present study will create an appropriate
framework for the investigation of the potential influence of audience design on the
interpreters’ behaviour in the genre of interpreted press conferences. Finally, we introduce
the interactive parameters that will be used for the analysis (2.5).
2.1. Interpreting Studies
It is a contention of this thesis that the shifts/mismatches taking place in the process of
interpreting may be seen resulting from other factors than from non-equivalence or
inaccuracy alone. As suggested above, interactional and social features may be involved.
Therefore, for the purpose of the present study, we shall firstly review the mode of
interpreting (2.1.1 dialogue interpreting, 2.1.2 press conference interpreting) as a genre.
We
will
then
review
Skopos
theory
(2.1.3)
because
targeted-oriented
translation/interpretation is involved in the interaction. Then we will go on to review the
community of practice (2.1.4) to gain insights into the influence of the common practice
of a group where a certain individual is identified with. The review of the interpreter’s
visibility, role and the interpreting norms (2.1.5) will be helpful to supplement the
community of practice in the area of translation and interpreting. It connects the role
description and visibility of interpreters with the interpreting norms that govern the
interpreting activity.
7
Pöchhacker (2004:11) defines interpreting as ‘a form of translation in which a first and final
rendition in another language is produced on the basis of a one-time presentation of an
utterance in a source language’. Seleskovitch (1978:87) defines interpreting as ‘to a great
extent, the verbal expression of things and ideas accompanied by the non-deliberate
creation of temporary linguistic equivalence’. Both of these definitions highlight the
immediacy of interpreting as an activity as compared to written translation, which is more
of a static process. In order to study interpreting, it is very important to have access to
recorded natural interpreting data since interpreting has this ‘one-time’ and ‘temporary’
feature. Generally, hard efforts have to be made to obtain permission to record interpreting
or to request permission to access existing interpreting data. Due to the confidentiality of
information or the reluctance of the organisers, natural interpreting data have been difficult
to obtain for research purposes. The availability in the public domain of recordings of the
Chinese Government Press conferences, including the interpreter’s output, greatly assisted
the present study. At the same time, it will be important to recognize the particular type of
interpreting involved in these events.
All interpreting as an activity shares some common features but it does have some subcategories. There have been many attempts (e.g. Salevsky 1993; Alexieva 2002;
Pöchhacker 2004) to categorize interpreting on the basis of the working mode/delivery
(simultaneous interpreting and consecutive interpreting), the medium (human, machine),
institution (legal interpreting, medical interpreting, media interpreting) or setting.
Among such a diversity of categorization, Alexieva’s proposal is best suited for the data of
the present study. Alexieva (2002: 220,221) suggests that the current diversity of
categorization is because it is all based on ‘a single parameter’. Instead, she proposes a
typology based on ‘a multi-parameter’ approach as a solution. She puts these parameters
under two broad headings i.e. ‘mode of delivery’ and ‘elements of the communicative
situation’. Under the first heading, her typology distinguishes simultaneous and consecutive
interpreting and under the second heading factors such as participants and topic, purpose of
the communication goals are included. Factors such as ‘command of languages’ (ibid:224)
of the speaker and addressees, the power relationships among participants, and the role and
the number of participants, constraints, the topic and communication goals help us look
beyond the ST and TT comparison and error analysis. They provide us with more insight
8
into the interpreter’s behaviour instead of prescribing what should be done correctly.
Alexieva (2002) admits that there are other peripheral 2 members under SI and CI. SI’s
peripheral type is whispering interpreting/chuchotage and under CI, it is liaison interpreting.
Actually, there are many different labels for peripheral members under CI. They include
dialogue interpreting, community interpreting, media interpreting, public service
interpreting, medical interpreting, court interpreting. Mason (2000: 216) argues that among
the various labels, dialogue interpreting is the most suited term to refer to the mode of
interpreting as a face-to-face interaction because a dialogue is a common feature of such
events. The data of this study are suitable to be classified as dialogue interpreting (under
consecutive interpreting) due to the mode of delivery and as press conference interpreting
due to the communicative setting.
2.1.1 Dialogue Interpreting
There is an increasing number of researchers (Knapp-Potthoff and Knapp 1986; BerkSeligson 1990; Wadensjö 1998; Roy 2000; Davidson 2002, Hatim and Mason 2002; Mason
2004; Mason 2006a; Mason 2006b; among others) focusing their research on interpretermediated face-to-face interaction. Mason has been playing a leading role in researching and
promoting dialogue interpreting. With The Translator (Mason ed. 1999) dedicating a whole
issue to dialogue interpreting and with a book Triadic Exchanges (2001) dedicated to
dialogue interpreting, it is clear that this mode has been recognized by the translation field.
Cecilia Wadensjö is also an important scholar in the development of dialogue interpreting
studies. The special contribution of her work is that in interpreting research, she adopts the
groundwork from Goffman and connects it with a discourse analytical approach. She
defines dialogue interpreting as being ‘constituted by spoken utterances following
subsequently upon and in parallel with one another.’(Wadensjö 2004:108) In dialogue
interpreting, translation and coordination of turn-taking are involved (1998: 105). Her
model emphasizes the importance of the participants in the communicative event, who may
pursue very different interactional goals (see 3.3). The meaning of any word does not just
The term ‘peripheral’ indicates Alexieva’s bias as a conference interpreter. This author does not support such bias but
the term will be used for reviewing her work.
2
9
depend on any one individual. There are various factors that may affect the understanding
of the ongoing interaction. She seeks to overcome the predominantly monologic view of
text and proposes a dialogic perspective on discourse (Pöchhacker 2004:79). The dialogic
perspective indicates that a constellation of participants in the interaction make sense of
meaning of the utterances on the basis of relevant contexts such as what words are used and
how they are used, who use them and the genre of the communication in which they are
used (Wadensjö:2004: 106-107).
The interaction at the press conferences of our corpus takes a dialogue form. The three
primary parties in the dialogue include the journalist who asks the question, the minister as
the respondent and the interpreter as the mediator/coordinator. There are other participants
in the interaction, such as the chairman and the organizer, but they generally assist the
smooth progression of the interaction rather than take a direct part in the interaction. For
example the chairman will choose among the journalists who will have the next turn to ask
a question and the organizer plays the function of consulting the minister to extend the
duration of the press conferences.
It needs to be pointed out that the corpus of the study is essentially dialogue interpreting
because the communication format is a question-and-answer interaction. However, the
corpus does have features that remind us of consecutive conference interpreting because the
ministers tend to have long turns without interruption. The journalists only have one turn of
asking a question. This makes the communication less interactive. It is a controlled
dialogue interpreting setting.
2.1.2 Press Conference3 Interpreting as a Genre
This study is about spoken interaction, therefore, we need to focus not on the text-types but
the speech genres. It is useful to view the speech genre in question in their socio-cultural
contexts. In China, televised press conference interpreting started in 1998. Against an
increasingly globalized background, such a mode of media interpreting has become very
popular in many countries providing speediness in information transfer. International press
3
Press conference as a genre is discussed at 3.2.2.
10
conference interpreting takes mainly two forms, the simultaneous mode and the consecutive
mode. In the case of the present study, the consecutive mode is adopted throughout the
events. There are studies of media interpreting (e.g. Alexieva 1998; Bielsa 2007;
Pöchhacker 2007; Wadensjö: 2009) and there has recently been an interest in press
conference interpreting. However, there is very little research dedicated to press conference
interpreting, even though it has played an important role in facilitating international
communication for a once-closed country like China. Schäffner (2008) suggests that
translated political communications including interpreted press conferences are often
presented in the media as if they are not translated communication. The translators are
portrayed as invisible in the media. We are going to examine the issue of invisibility in
2.1.5 because invisibility is an important aspect to investigate this interpreting genre.
2.1.3 Skopos Theory
Target-oriented theory from translation studies should be included in our theoretical
framework because it enables us to compare interactive features (not just linguistic features)
adopted in the ST and the TT. The term Skopos is a Greek word which means ‘purpose’. It
was borrowed and was developed in translations studies in Germany in the late 1970s by
Hans Vermeer. Nord (1991, 1997) translated and introduced Vermeer’s work into English.
The Skopos theory shifts from being a pure linguistic translation theory to being a more
functionally and socio-culturally oriented translation approach. For Pöchhacker (2004:76)
‘The Skopos for which a target text was commissioned constitutes the controlling principle
of translational activity, over and above such traditional criteria of source-target
correspondence as equivalence, invariance, or fidelity’.
Skopos was designed more in response to the needs of non-literary translation such as
scientific and academic papers, instructions for use, advertising fliers, tourist guides, and
contracts. When a translation is commissioned by a client, it comes with a translation brief
which provides important information such as the purpose of the translation, the target
audience and details about the time and location of the occasions (Nord 1997:30). Rather
than faithfully reflecting the information in the source text, the translator has to make sure
11
the translation meets the intended purpose of the target text (ibid. 31). For example, in
translating an advertising flier a faithful reproduction of the source text may not be a
desirable translation which can be recognized as an effective advertisement in the target
culture. In order to create an effective advertisement in the target text, the translator may
need to make some necessary amendments to the source text to adapt to the target culture in
order to be effective. The skopos of the target text is not necessarily identical to that of the
source text.
Therefore the focus of equivalence-based translation theory is source texts, while Skopos’
focus lies in target texts. The source text provides raw materials for translators but the
translators have to look to the purpose of the translation to know how to play with those
raw materials. However, this shift of focus is also the reason for Skopos theory being
subject to criticism. Skopos is criticized for prioritizing the communicative function of the
text in the target culture over the features of the source text (Newmark 1990). Nord (1991)
responds to such criticism by stressing that the translator has a moral obligation to make the
target readers aware of any change made to the source text. In addition, Nord (1997: 119120) states that the source text is not overlooked in the translation process. However, the
source text is no longer the only criterion for translation. The function or purpose of the
translation is a very important aspect that should be taken into account in the translation
process. Therefore, it would not be appropriate to claim that the functional approach does
not take the source text into account.
This functional approach is applicable not only to translation; interpreting studies has
adopted it as well. Pöchhacker has applied this functional approach to lay a foundation for
‘conceptual models and empirical analyses of interactional, situational and textual features
of simultaneous conference interpreting’ (2004:77). Therefore, it is only appropriate to
include it in our framework. However, theory has moved on over the decades since Skopos
theory was first proposed. Spencer-Oatey’s (2000) concept of interactional goals (see
Section 2.3.2.6) replaces the notion of ‘purpose’ while Bell’s (1984) ‘audience design’
provides a framework for analysing orientation towards receivers. Consequently, the
functional approach of Skopos is taken forward under interactional goals in the
methodology (Chapter 3) and in the analysis (Chapter 4 and 5). In addition, the target
12
audience which is an important part of skopos theory, is taken forward by audience design
in the analysis (Chapter 4 and 5).
2.1.4 Community of Practice
Hermans and Lambert (1998) suggest that translation is embedded in structures of social
organization. Also, Wadensjö (2004:107) points out that institutional encounters are subject
to more or less ritualized norms and rules. It is important to take these norms into
consideration when researching naturally occurring translation and interpreting such as our
data.
The notion of ‘community of practice’ (CofP), as proposed by Lave and Wenger (1991)
and by Wenger (1998), is a useful tool for examining the common practice of the
interpreters for the press conferences in the present study. The term was first used to
explain and describe learning that occurs in apprenticeship situations (Lave and Wenger
1991). It was then introduced to language and gender studies by Eckert and McConnellGinet (1992). It is defined as follows:
An aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagement in an
endeavour. Ways of doing things, ways of talking, beliefs, values, power relations -in short, practices -- emerge in the course of this mutual endeavour. As a social
construct, a Cof P is different from the traditional community, primarily because it is
defined simultaneously by its membership and by the practice in which that
membership engages (1992: 464).
The definition highlights the concept of ‘practice’ and this is what distinguishes the CofP
from other similar concepts such as ‘speech community’ and ‘social network’. It indicates
that a CofP is not a static but an on-going process. It indicates that the members of a certain
group may share the practice which suggests that they belong to a same group. Such
practice may include linguistic structures, discourse features and interactional behaviour.
Wenger (1998) points out that the CofP is a tool to examine a natural method of learning
which resembles apprenticeship. For example, to become a member of a CofP involves
13
learning how to behave appropriately according to membership status. It requires both
social and linguistic competence to become a member of the CofP (see 3.2.3).
There are three crucial elements of a CofP (ibid:76): 1. mutual engagement; 2. a joint
negotiated enterprise; 3. a shared repertoire of negotiable resources accumulated over time.
Mutual engagement suggests regular interaction among the members of a CofP to make
their relationships possible. The interaction can be informal such as having tea together or
formal such as having discussions and meetings. Mutual engagement for the interpreters of
press conferences may be regular interaction with regard to interpretation and translation
for the Chinese central government. The trainee interpreters of the Foreign Affairs Ministry
(which provides all the interpreters for the press conferences in the study) have a daily
routine of practising their listening comprehension by listening to BBC and Voice of
America, memory practice sessions, note-taking practice sessions and current affairs
terminology sessions (Ren 2004). The interpreters participate in such practice routine
regularly. This mutual engagement allows these interpreters to interact on a regular basis.
The joint enterprise refers not just to a shared goal but includes relationships of mutual
accountability. The joint enterprise for the press conference interpreters should be to
produce ‘correct’ (i.e. faithful, accurate and complete) translation and interpretation for the
Chinese government.
The shared repertoire is a result of the pursuit of the joint enterprise (ibid: 80). A shared
terminology, greeting routines and even gestures can all constitute the repertoire. The
interpreters generally use translated terminologies which have been approved as ‘correct’.
Such a repertoire is often a result of many discussions among interpreters and official
approval.
There are some detailed characteristics of a CofP listed by Wenger (1998:130-131). For
reasons of space, the list is not provided here. A description of the CofP of ministerial level
press conferences is provided in Chapter 3.
14
2.1.5 Interpreter’s Visibility, Role and Interpreting Norms
Venuti (1995) discusses the invisibility of the translator. He distinguishes the notions of
domestication and foreignization. Domestication involves removing strange foreign
elements so that the translated text reads just like an original work instead of a translated
work. This tactic makes the reading of the translation easier for the target language readers
but it does not introduce any foreign culture to the readers. Such a process makes the
translator invisible as well. Foreignization refers to the tactic that is the opposite of
domestication. It preserves the foreign elements of the ST and emphasizes the differences
between cultures and languages. The reading of such translation with the strategy of
foreignization conveys a message that it is translated work and the translator’s presence is
visible. Venuti seems to make the connection between two different translation strategies
with the visibility of translators i.e. domestication is linked to the translator’s invisibility
and foreignization is linked with the translator’s visibility. Similarly, the expectation of the
interpreter to ‘just interpret’ plays the same purpose of reducing the visibility of interpreters.
This invisible expectation is quite common among interpreter clients but it is more of an
ideal way of thinking than reality. We have reviewed Venuti’s inputs on the issue of
invisibility in the context of translation and it has provided us a useful insight i.e. the
connection between translation strategy and the visibility/invisibility of translators. We
should examine this issue in the context of interpreting. Invisible/invisibility in the present
study refers to the phenomenon where the interpreters are portrayed as a facility/machine
rather than a valid participant in the interaction.
As we have mentioned (2.1.2), Schäffner (2008) discovers that the media tends to portray
the interpreter’s mediation as invisible in political discourse. The foreign politicians’
interpreted/translated utterances are often quoted as if they were the politicians’ own words
without acknowledging they are actually translations. The practice of portraying the
interpreter as invisible has been challenged by Angelelli (2004) through a survey of
interpreters (conference, court and medical interpreters) and by Apostolou (2009) by
examining the film The Interpreter. These authors question how interpreters, whose very
involvement is essential for the cross-cultural communication can be treated as nonparticipant and as invisible.
15
The visibility or the invisibility of interpreters is also related to how the role of interpreters
is perceived (See 3.2.3.4).
A very common way of perceiving interpreters’ role is
influenced by what Reddy (1979) called the conduit metaphor. Under the influence of this
model, interpreters have been regarded as instruments which convey the information in a
norm of non-involvement. They function like a telephone, which transfers the words and
utterances of the speaker to the other end. The conduit model is a monological view of
interpreting. In practice, it is not possible that the interpreter just perform as a machine, as
will be shown below.
It is very common for interpreters to be seen as ‘sounding machines’ by the public. KnappPotthoff and Knapp (1986:152-153) suggest that in formal settings like simultaneous or
consecutive interpreting, the interpreters’ role is defined as a ‘non-party’ or a machine in
the interaction. Such ‘conduit’ perception of the interpreter’s role is challenged by many
authors (Berk-Seligson 1990; Morris: 1993; Wadensjö 1998; Roy 2000; Mullamaa 2009).
Berk-Seligson (1990:119) identifies a general tendency in interpreters to change less
consistent ST speech style into more appropriate testimony style for example, a hesitant,
informal style may become an articulate and formal style. Her findings confirm that the
general expectation of interpreters as mere sound-machines is not practical. Wadensjö
states that interpreting can not be a mechanical activity because ‘interpreting as an activity
can never be a simple application of norms of grammar, generic style, politeness, and so
forth.’ (1998:41).
Moreover, Wadensjö points out that in the debate on the appropriate role for interpreters
there are ‘translator’ versus ‘mediator’ roles or in the case of interpreting, ‘interpreting’
versus ‘advocacy’ (ibid: 6). In this study, we shall only look at the role of interpreters (not
translators). According to Wadensjö ,‘advocacy’ means ‘actively supporting, defending and
pleading for one of the parties - the client’; ‘interpreting’ in the strict sense is not engaged
in such activity. As can be seen from 3.2.3.2 Standards Guidelines, it is clear that in this
study the interpreters’ instructed role is to ‘interpret’, not ‘advocacy’. This is the role that
the institution expects the interpreter to play in the press conferences. The analysis of the
data may reveal a different result.
16
Anderson (1978/2002) suggests that the interpreter’s role can be described from the
perspective of the interpreter’s identification with the clients. The interpreter can ‘cast
himself in the role of the nonpartisan’ (2002:213) which means that he is neutral in the
interaction. There are two possible reasons for the nonpartisan orientation. It may be due to
the linguistic dominance in the interpreter. If bilingualism and biculturalism is balanced in
the interpreter, he may be able to do so (neutral and non-partisan). The other reason is that
the interpreter chooses to be detached from the situation. The interpreter’s identification
with the clients does cause role conflicts. If the interpreter is serving two clients at same
time it is likely that one of the clients is apt to be displeased (ibid. 212). There may be other
factors that affect how the interpreter identifies himself with the clients. The interpreter
may identify more with the client who is paying him or he may identify more with the
client whose ideology or positions on certain issues he approves of. It should be interesting
to find out how the interpreters identify themselves with the participants in the corpus of
the study.
Despite much discussion about the role of interpreters, as we have mentioned, it remains
problematic. Anderson states (2002:211):
The interpreter’s role is always partially undefined - that is, the role prescriptions
are objectively inadequate. The interpreter’s position is also characterized by role
overload. Not only is it seldom entirely clear what he is to do, he is also frequently
expected to do more than is objectively possible’.
Dickinson and Turner (2008) make similar observations. They observe that the role
confusion is closely linked to the difficulties faced by sign language interpreters in their
workplaces. Hale (2007), in her attempt to provide guidelines for community interpreters,
urges that community interpreting be performed accurately and impartially. The reason that
she emphasizes or promotes the well-established principle among community interpreters is
due to the situation that many community interpreters do not have the privilege of receiving
professional training or pre-service training. Rudvin (2007: 66-67) and Hale (2008:110)
stress that role definition is important for professional recognition, professional identity,
professionalism and quality of services in the context of community interpreting.
17
The role description and the visibility of interpreters are under the influence of the
interpreting norms/code of ethics that govern interpreters. In Chapter One (see 1.1) we have
reviewed the AUSIT code of ethics and the unwritten code of practice for Chinese
government interpreters4. In this section, we shall now examine such interpreting norms in
more depth because such norms have an important influence on the interpreter’s role and
visibility. Interpreting norms here mainly refer to the interpreting code of practice/ethics,
training and assessment standards, quality-related expectations of interpreting and the
interpreter. We shall review some representative views on interpreting norms.
Yong Zhong, a Chinese researcher and senior lecturer in Australia with knowledge of
translation and interpreting teaching practice both in China and in Australia, observes:
As an educator with Chinese and Australian experiences, I believe that, likewise,
the training of Chinese-English translators in the two countries has been obsessed
with producing accurate practitioners. (2002:575-576)
Trainee interpreters seem to share a similar view. Bartlomiejczyk (2007:247) finds that, in
Europe, trainee interpreters show a very strong trend to focus on the negative assessment
(error-based assessment) —’combined with most attention being devoted to faithfulness to
the original message and to completeness’ in their self-evaluation. In addition, Angelelli
(2006:179) suggests a list of professional standards and codes for healthcare interpreters. In
her list, the most frequent requirement is for ‘accuracy and completeness.’
After reviewing professional codes of ethics, service users’ expectations, and training
standards, it can be stated that ‘faithfulness, accuracy and completeness’ constitute the
general maxims that all interpreters, whether they are conference interpreters, dialogue
interpreters, court interpreters or healthcare interpreters, are expected to follow. With this
established, we can confirm that the maxims that are imposed on the Chinese press
conference interpreters are representative of what are expected from all interpreters.
It is very clear that these three principles are principles of quality control rather than ‘loyalty’ or ‘patriotism’ as might be
suspected. There is no valid evidence available from the data analysis to suggest that the unwritten code has anything to
do with ‘patriotism.’ The interpreters in the present study are highly qualified professionals and a label of patriotism to
their performance is not warranted. The unwritten code is transmitted to the interpreters during their training (see below
section 3.2.3.1)
4
18
In summary, by reviewing the mode of interpreting used in our corpus we have gained
useful insights about dialogue interpreting and press conference interpreting. Insights from
Skopos theory, Cof P and the interpreter’s role, visibility and interpreting norms allow us to
carry out our analysis in with more contextual knowledge.
2.2. Participation Framework, Footing and Audience Design
In face-to-face interaction, including the interpreting situation, the relationship between the
interlocutors often undergoes changes from moment to moment. This important variable in
the way individuals take part in social interaction is explained by Goffman (1981) via what
he calls the participation framework.
2.2.1 Participation Framework
Participation framework is described as follows: ‘when a word is spoken, all those who
happen to be within perceptual range of the event will have some sort of participation status
relative to it’ (Goffman 1981:3). With regard to the production format of an utterance,
Goffman (1981:226) distinguishes three participation statuses of the speaker:
a. the animator—the sounding box from which the utterances come.
b. the author—the agent who puts together, composes, or scripts the lines that are
uttered.
c. the principal—the party to whose position, stand, and belief the words attest.
When the speaker acts as the animator, he/she may not be the author; for example, the
person who reads a speech may not be the one who writes it. If the speaker acts as an author,
he/she also acts as the animator. Likewise, the principal is usually also both author and
animator. However, the principal may not necessarily act as animator and author. For
example, when the Queen asks her representative to read a condolence letter on her behalf
to an audience, the Queen remains the principal of the message although she is not the one
who reads out the message or who writes it. Similarly, the Queen still acts as the principal
if she chooses to be the animator and author as well.
19
Edmondson (1986) refines Goffman’s model in his attempt to investigate the role of
interpreters in a general type of interpreting. 5 He suggests that there are at least four roles
involved in the notion of speaker (1986:132):
a. the producer (responsible for the sounds)
b. the encoder (responsible for the formulation)
c. the meaner (responsible for the speaker-meaning)
d. the responder (responsible for the social consequences of the communication)
Edmondson’s suggestion of these four roles bears a great resemblance to Goffman’s notion.
The encoder is similar to the author. The meaner and responder are similar to the role of the
principal. The category of the meaner is perhaps superfluous as its responsibility is
overlapping with that of the responder. Edmondson gives an example (ibid.) to show that
the producer and the meaner can be two people. He claims that when he asks his secretary
to make a phone call on his behalf and communicate a speaker-meaning that he determined,
his secretary is the producer and he is the meaner. In such circumstance, the producer and
the meaner are two people.
With regard to the notion of hearer, Goffman suggests that the hearer may have different
reception statuses such as ‘addressed recipient’ and ‘unaddressed recipient’ (1981:133) and
‘eavesdropping’ and ‘overhearing’ (ibid:132). Based on Goffman, Bell (1984,2001)
proposes his audience model which includes the addressee, auditor, overhearer and
eavesdropper (see section 2.2.2 for details). In addition, Edmondson (1986: 133)
distinguishes four roles of hearer:
a. the uptaker (responsible for ‘uptaking6’);
b. the recorder/sampler (responsible for ‘getting the message’);
c. the understander (responsible for ‘getting the gist’);
d. the responder (responsible for responding).
Compared to Goffman and Bell, Edmondson’s distinction is vague (e.g. the difference
between ‘getting the message’ and ‘getting the gist’). It should be recognized that just like
5
Edmondson does not wish to restrict the interpreting mode to one type and he prefers a more general nature.
means the person or persons who are expected to adopt the physical role of listening, via body-stance, headnodding, eye-contact etc. (Edmondson 1986:133)
6 This
20
Wadensjö, Edmondson is dissatisfied with Goffman’s distinctions (as mentioned above)
and wants to delve deeper into the role of hearers. He attempts to indicate in his hearer
category the reason for each hearer’s listening. The uptaker’s role is merely to show that
they are listening. The recorder/sampler is to record what the speaker is saying to select
what would be needed for understanding. The understander is to derive speaker meaning
from what they hear. The responder is to listen in order to be in a position to respond.
However, the role of recorder/sampler seems to overlap with that of the understander. It
would be better if these two roles merge into one. We should compare Edmondson’s hearer
category with that of Wadensjö’s.
Wadensjö’s (1998:92-93) reception model distinguishes:
a. the reporter (who memorizes for repetition words uttered by another speaker,
such as in a language learning class),
b. the responder (who is expected to take the discourse further by new content or
at least by back-channelling),
c. the recapitulator (who will take the floor over and recapitulate what was said).
Wadensjö relates the reception model to Goffman’s production mode. The reporter
subsequently relates to one’s utterances as animator. The responder relates to one’s
utterances as animator, author and principal. The recapitulator is often assigned the role of
animator and author.
It appears that Edmondson and Wadensjö agree on the need for the category of ‘responder’
but they disagree on the role of the interpreter. For Edmondson (1986: 135), ‘the totally
central interactive responding function involved in speaker/hearer is not a relevant role for
the interpreter’ because ‘The interpreter is not involved in the public negotiation of
meaning going on inside the talk in which he or she plays a mediating role.’ Such a claim
may be challenged by the data in our corpus because the shifts that will be shown and
analysed in Chapters 4 and 5 are not due to inaccuracy. This indicates that the interpreters
are not totally absent from the public negotiation of meaning as suggested by Edmondson.
Wadensjö (1998:93) recognises that the interpreter is often just a ‘recapitulator’, not the
‘principal’ but she points out that it is possible for the interpreter to take the role or be given
21
the role of respondent. When a clarification request is made to the interpreter, he/she takes
the role of respondent. In our corpus, the format is very formal. Although there are no rules
against interpreter asking for clarification or interruption or talking as ‘principal’, such
incidents do not occur. In our data, when the interpreters are interpreting for the Minister
(i.e. when interpreting English questions into Chinese), they are offering a version to be
responded to. On the other hand, when interpreting from Chinese into English, the
interpreter is offering a version to be understood (cf. Edmondson’s ‘understander’;
Wadensjö’s ‘recapitulator’) but not to be responded to.
It is noted that relationships in the participation framework are subject to change from
moment to moment. As Goffman suggests, ‘the alignment of an individual to a particular
utterance, whether involving a production format, as in the case of the speaker, or solely a
participation status, as in the case of a hearer, can be referred to as his footing’ (:1981227).
A change of footing implies ‘a change in the alignment we take up to ourselves and the
others present as expressed in the way we manage the production or reception of an
utterance’ (1981:128; see also Wadensjö 1998). Such a change of alignment can be marked
by style change, use of address terms, or even gaze shift and posture change. For example,
imagine there are four friends (A,B,C,D) who are engaged in a social interaction. A is
talking to B about his new book and suddenly A turns to C and asks if C has read his book.
With the shifting of addressee from B to C, there is a change of footing.
Keith (1984: 314), in his discussion of liaison interpreting, points out that there are two
different footings taken up by the interpreter. One is ‘macro-conversationally oriented’
(interpreting the statement of one of the two interlocutors) and the other is ‘text-oriented,’
(the interpreter is acting on behalf of himself/herself to provide clarification, explanation
and repetition). Edmondson (1986:136) points out that the (simultaneous) interpreter needs
to be both speaker and hearer at the same time. It is worth noting that it is not true of the
interpreters of our corpus as the interpreting mode of the present study is not simultaneous.
Levinson (1988:169) agrees that Goffman’s participation framework categories are an
advance on earlier work but they appear to be ‘empirically inadequate.’ He provides a more
linguistic interpretation of the notion of footing by suggesting that the participant status
should include author, relayer (e.g. if someone is being possessed by a demon and this
22
person becomes the relayer of the demon’s words) and spokesman (for some principals)
(ibid: 200-203). Levinson’s distinction of participation status is not very useful for the
present study because footing is not a concern in the aim of our research.
To sum up, Goffman’s participation framework is invented for natural talk. It has been
criticised for being vague and not empirical (Levinson 1988:162). It has nevertheless been
successfully applied to the study of interpreting data by scholars like Keith (1984),
Wadensjö (1998) and Seferlis (2005). Goffman’s participation framework also forms the
basis of Bell’s (1984) audience design which provides the structure (see 3.4.2) for the
analysis of the data in this study. Audience design will be reviewed in the next section.
2.2.2 Audience Design
The concept of audience design was proposed by Bell initially in 1984 as an attempt to
explain ‘intra-speaker linguistic variation’. (1984:147). The name of the concept was not
invented by Bell, who (2001:141) notes that it comes from Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson’s
(1974) ‘recipient design’. In essence, audience design is about the way in which speakers
design their style primarily for and in response to their audience (2001:143).
However, not all researchers share Bell’s view about the audience influence on the
speaker’s style. Labov (1972: 208) proposed that style shift is the result of the amount of
attention paid to speech by the speaker. The amount of attention paid by a speaker is
directly related to the level of formality of speech. However, Bell disagrees with such a
claim and argues that the speaker’s awareness of his addressee proves to be a stronger
factor than the attention factor (1984:149).
There are inter-speaker and intra-speaker dimensions of style variation. Bell’s work is
primarily concerned with the intra-speaker style shift. He regards intra-speaker variation as
a derivation of inter-speaker variation and it ‘echoes’ inter-speaker variation (1984:151).
Based on Goffman’s (1981) notion of participation framework, Bell (1984, see also Clark
and Murphy 1982, Fussell and Krauss 1992, Lockridge and Brennan, 2002) points out that
23
intra-speaker style shifts are related to the hearers’ person attributes (1984: 159). Bell
(1984:160) distinguishes:
Addressee—whose presence is ratified and known to the speaker and is being
directly addressed;
Auditors—whose presence is ratified and known to the speaker but is not being
directly addressed;
Overhearers—whose presence is known but not ratified or directly addressed;
Eavesdroppers—whose presence is not known or ratified or being directly
addressed.
Bell (1984:160) suggests that, in face-to-face interaction, speaker’s style design is relative
to graded role distance. The Addressee has the largest influence over the speaker’s style
because his/her role distance is the closest to the speaker. The present study’s finding
provides evidence that in interpreted events, auditors may have larger influence over the
speaker’s style than the addressees in some participation frameworks. The auditors and
overhearers come as second and third in their degree of salience for the speaker’s style. No
influence is attributed to eavesdroppers. Other factors like settings or topic may constitute
additional factors of influence in association with audience.
In addition to the members of the audience, Bell proposes the existence of ‘referee groups’
who may exert influence over the speaker’s style. Referees are ‘third persons not
(physically) usually present at an interaction, but possessing such salience for a speaker that
they influence style even in their absence’ (2001:146). With the style shift, it seems the
speaker is talking to the referee rather than the addressee. There is a distinction between ingroup referee and out-group referee. In-group referee design occurs when speakers talking
to an out-group member shift their style towards their own in-group (1984:187). Out-group
referee design occurs when speakers move towards an out-group which may hold prestige
for them in some sense (ibid: 188). For example, an interpreter who is a doctor might make
a patient’s speech more medical (in-group). One, who is not a doctor but wants to sound
like one, may attempt to do the same thing (out-group).
Referee design is closely linked with ‘initiative shift’, which is an important component of
Bell’s framework. Initiative shift refers to the situation where the style-shift itself initiates a
24
change in the situation rather than such change resulting from such a change and it is a
redefinition by the speakers of their identity in relation to their audience. (2001:146-147).
Divergence (a reaction against the addressee i.e. to be different from the addressee) is an
initiative shift as convergence is regarded as the norm and it is achieved when a speaker
shifts towards his/her addressee (1984:185). Such referee design can be short term or long
term. Moreover, Bell (1984:191) made a distinction between face-to-face interaction in
which speakers respond to their audience and ‘media language’ (i.e. broadcasting), which is
initiative style design: ‘It creates the relationship between communicator and audience,
rather than responding to an existing relationship.’ This is similar to the situation of the
interpreted press conferences in the study.
Referee design is complementary to audience design because it can handle the situation
when the influence of the audience is not clear. Referee design provides a dynamic view of
style. Bell (2001) reworks the relationship between ‘initiative mode’ and ‘referee design’.
‘Initiative style-shifts are in essence ‘referee design,’ by which the linguistic features
associated with a reference group can be used to express identification with that group.’ He
makes the link between the initiative mode and referee design more explicit (c.f. 1984:182191).
In mass media communication, the speakers often respond to their reference group rather
than the addressee (1984:191). Bell (1991:76) suggests expanding the audience roles for
mass media events (his research mostly concerns radio broadcasting). There is at least a
two-layered audience
7
, namely the inner/immediate/embedded audience, who are
physically present at the event, and the outer/mass audience. This indicates that speakers
may choose which audience they are going to respond to. The interpreted press conferences
of the present study contain more complex layers of audience because of the involvement
of the interpreters, the fact that speaker and audience shift into each other’s role in different
participation frameworks and the different language, culture and country background of the
journalists.
7
Each layer has its own potential set of four roles (addressee, auditor, overhearers and eavesdroppers).
25
As indicated by Bell (1984:194), referee design in the media affects all levels of linguistic
codes. In the present study, referee design may involve not just the linguistic codes but the
perspectives and orientation taken by the journalists.
Audience design is ‘a strategy by which speakers draw on the range of linguistic resources
available in their speech community to respond to different kinds of audiences.’ (Bell:
2001:145) In media events however, Bell points out that the audience can be quite
powerless as an individual media consumer and the communicator is more powerful (1984:
193). In the present study, the power structure may exert more influence over the speakers
and audience’s behaviour (see a review of power at 2.3.2.4).
In Bell’s (2001) revision of his framework, he only provides some minor updating and
supportive evidence for the 1984 model. Overall, he tries to present and explain audience
design in a more systematic way to capture the essence of the framework.
There are other scholars who carry out research to investigate audience design. Some
scholars’ research confirms the presence of audience design in communicative interaction.
Schober and Clark (1989) find that the addressee can understand the speaker better than the
overhearers. Horton and Gerrig (2002) propose that speakers’ experiences influence how
they adjust their utterances for their addressees. In constrast, some scholar’s research does
not support presence of audience design’s. Kraljic and Brennan (2005) suggest a need for a
convincing test to detect audience design.
Another approach in style research is accommodation theory represented by Giles. He
(1997:230) suggests that ‘the essence of accommodation lies in the social psychological
research on similarity-attraction.’ The difference between Giles and Bell is that language is
only one of the issues8 that Giles puts in his psychological theory (Coupland and Jaworski:
1997:230) whereas Bell follows Labovian tradition and uses quantitative study on linguistic
variation and identifies style variation as derivation from social variation (ibid.)
8
Other issues include the importance of social norms and the constraints of appropriate behaviour. (Coupland and
Jaworski: 1997:230)
26
Bell’s framework primarily focuses on the intra-speaker style shift in monolingual
situations but he indicates that audience design is applicable not only to monolingual but
also to multilingual settings (2001:144). He does not however offer any detailed
explanation or evidence to back up his claim. The kind of bilingual situations in early
studies (e.g. Gal 1979; Dorian 1981) where audience design can be applied do not involve
translation or interpreting. They are restricted to the speaker switching from one language
to another language.
Hatim and Mason (1997) are the first to mention audience design as an important aspect of
translation as a communication process. Mason (2000) furthers the application of audience
design in translation studies. He uses insights from audience design in functionalist theories
like Skopos. He analyses various instances of translation through the variables of power
and distance and aspects of politeness. He finds that significant translational shifts can be
linked with the systematic differences between the audience design and text design of
producers of source texts and target texts. He concludes by suggesting that it is useful to
apply an audience design model to functionalist translation studies (as translation is
regarded as an act of communication by Skopos) to investigate interpersonal (between
participants) and inter-textual (socio-textual practices) relations in various translation
situations.
Serban (2003) investigates audience design in literature translations from Romanian into
English. Through examining the parameters of deixis and presupposition, she finds that
audience design has a distancing effect in her translation corpus. She attributes the effect to
factors like accommodation to the audience, politeness and relevance considerations. She
concludes that audience design is a necessary component of translation processes. Holland
(2006) attempts to include audience design in his research but he does not actually explain
or apply the concept; he merely mentions the term once. Zhang (2004:67) claims that the
audience is often neglected in research because the audience cannot have direct influence
on the interpreting process. He proposes that there are three kinds of audience: a. the
ordinary audience (who participate in events such as receptions, ceremonial events and who
may not have specialized knowledge); b. the specialized audience (who attend international
conferences, seminars or factories); c. special audience (e.g. guest leaders/senior
government officials and bilingual audience including interpreting colleagues). The
27
interpreter should adapt the interpreting strategy according to the audience types (ibid. 68).
Zhang points out that the special audience group requires the highest accuracy and pressure
on the interpreter because of the presence of the senior government officials and the
presence of media. Our corpus should fall into this special audience category. The potential
problem with Zhang’s research is that it does not apply any audience design related studies
in sociolinguistics. It is more of a prescriptive account of what he considers the interpreters
should do in response to different audiences.
Audience design, just like any other framework which attempts to systemize style is
criticized for being reductionist. It is hard to resist such criticism as any model which
attempts to generalize style faces such problems. Finegan and Biber (2001:236) criticize
Bell for providing no explanation for patterns of social dialect which he takes to be
fundamental. They find counterevidence to Bell’s claim that ‘style variation presupposes
social dialect variation’ (ibid: 238). Although Finegan and Biber’s critique is valid, social
dialect variation is not a concern for this thesis. Audience design is being studied in terms
of interpreters’ interpreting behaviour rather than merely as a factor of influencing style.
For our purposes in this study, ‘style’ should be understood as entire communicative
behaviour.
Audience design is a very useful framework for the present study to examine the
participants’ behaviour in interpreted interaction in mass media. Although its original
purpose is not to examine the behaviour of interpreters who mediate across languages and
cultures, it is powerful as a framework to apply in more complex situations such as those
represented by the data in the present study. As has been mentioned above, audience design
has been applied in translation studies, so far, however, it has not been applied to
interpreting settings. Given that we will apply the participation frameworks of the press
conferences to structure our analysis (see 3.4.2), it is only logical to apply audience design
in the analysis. The interpreters’ reception frameworks are also provided in Chapter 6 as
findings.
28
2.3 Face Management
The models reviewed in 2.2 help us to structure (by PFs) our data for the analysis. In
relation to the aim of our research we need to examine the interactive features of the corpus.
The interactive features that we will focus on are face management and information
management (see 2.4). In this section, we shall review basic pragmatic concepts including
speech acts and Grice’s cooperative principle (2.3.1). Both of which are important for an
understanding of face and information management. We shall then review face
management (2.3.2) related studies including work from Brown and Levinson, Lakoff,
Spencer-Oatey and inputs about the Chinese concept of face. Examining how the
interpreter manages face in the interaction allows us to investigate if the interpreter’s
behaviour changes in response to a change in the audience.
2.3.1 Speech Acts and Grice’s Cooperative Principle
Before we attempt to gain a full understanding of politeness theory, it is helpful to review
its origin and its foundation i.e. speech acts and Grice’s cooperative principle which
provides insights into the way people communicate.
Austin’s speech act is our point of departure. Austin (1962, 1975) argues that some
utterances are not statements (that are true or false) to describe what you are doing or to
state that you are doing something (i.e. constatives). The issuing of an utterance can
perform an action. Such utterances are called performatives (1975:6). For the performatives
to work, felicity conditions have to be met. Only the appropriate person in the right context
(time and place) can successfully perform the act.
There are four different kinds of conditions (1975:14-15):
a. There must be a conventional procedure with conventional effect and there
must be appropriate circumstances and persons;
b. The procedure must be performed correctly and completely;
c. The persons in the procedure must have the right thoughts and feelings;
d. The relevant participants must intend to conduct the procedure.
29
Searle (1969), as summarized by Huang (2007:104), further developed Austin’s felicity
conditions. In summary, Searle put forward four categories, i.e. propositional content,
preparatory condition (cf. a. above), sincerity condition (cf. d. above) and essential
condition. The propositional content condition is ‘in essence concerned with what the
speech act is about. For example a promise predicates some future action of the speaker
while a request predicates some future action of the addressee’ Huang (2007:105). The
preparatory conditions state ‘the real-world prerequisites for the speech act. For requests,
such conditions mean that the speaker has reason to believe that the addressee has the
ability to carry out the request’ (ibid:105). The sincerity condition must be satisfied if the
act is to be performed sincerely. When a promise is made, the speaker must sincerely intend
to honour his promise. The essential condition defines the act being performed in the sense
that the speaker has the intention that his or her utterance will count as the identifiable act,
and that this intention is recognized by the addressee. For a promise, the speaker must have
the intention of creating an obligation to act (ibid).
As pointed out by Levinson (1983: 231), Austin moves on from the dichotomy of the
performative and constative to a general theory of speech acts where the performatives and
constatives are included as sub-cases. When an utterance is produced there are three related
acts taking place. A locutionary act refers to the act of producing the utterance (Austin
1975:94). An illocutionary act or illocutionary force refers to the communicative
function/intension of the utterance. Perlocutionary act/effect refers to the effect that the
speaker intends to have. To relate this to our topic, we can say that, in interpreting, it is
important that the interpreters do not only convey what is said (locutionary force) but also
communicate the function/intention of the utterance. In addition, interpreters may need to
devise certain strategies to achieve the effect of the utterance intended by the speaker.
However, many stakeholders in interpreting events may require the interpreters just to
communicate the locutionary force of the utterance and not to intervene with the
illocutionary and perlocutionary force.
Searle’s refined felicity conditions assume that sincerity is the prerequisite for
communication to be successful. In this direction, Grice (1975) suggested the cooperative
30
principle (CP) which serves as a set of assumptions for effective communication as: ‘Make
your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the
accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.’ (Grice 1975:
45)
Grice summarizes the CP as four maxims:
The maxim of quality:
Try to make your contribution one that is true, by not
saying what you believe to be false or something for
which you lack adequate evidence.
The maxim of quantity:
For the current purposes of the exchange your
contribution as informative as is required, but not more
than is required.
The maxim of relevance:
Make your contribution relevant.
The maxim of manner: Be perspicuous, and specifically avoid obscurity of
expression and ambiguity, be brief and orderly.
Based on these maxims, the speaker would ideally be sincere in providing the true
information, be adequate in providing the right amount of information (not too much and
not too little), be relevant and be clear. However, in reality such maxims are often flouted.
Grice suggests when these maxims are not observed, inferences can be drawn on the
assumption that the speaker is carry out the flouting for co-operation. He refers to these
cases as conversational implicature. When the speaker flouts the cooperative principle
maxims, the hearers assume that the speaker is trying to imply additional meanings by
his/her flouting. They use their knowledge to infer such additional meaning that the speaker
intended. For example, if Jack asks Mary ‘How much do you make every month?’ and
Mary answers, ‘Well, the weather has been very changeable recently’, according to the
maxims, Mary’s answer does not provide adequate relevant information in a sincere and
clear way. However, the extra meaning Mary implies in her answer is very obvious. With
such a response, Mary is indicating that Jack’s inquiry is going too far and she is not
willing to provide such private information.
31
In the context of interpreting, quoting from ancient9 poems, proverbs and philosophy (such
as Confucius among others) is commonly used by Chinese politicians to impress their
audience. When such a quote is used, the Chinese audience will be able to draw the
inferences via one or more of the maxims. However, such inferences may not be accessible
to a foreign audience.
Apart from Grice’s conversational implicature, there are other scholars who have attempted
to provide insights into the circumstances and motivations for flouting the maxims. Lakoff
(1973) introduces the notion of politeness by distinguishing two sets of rules i.e. the ‘rules
of clarity’ and the ‘rules of politeness’ (1973:296). The ‘rule of clarity’ is similar to the
Gricean maxim of manner. The rules of politeness (i.e. do not impose, give options and
make other participants feel good) is an addition to the Gricean principle. Lakoff (1973:304)
points out that the speaker usually chooses to observe the rule of politeness if the rule of
clarity and the rule of politeness are in collision.
In a similar direction, Leech (1983) attempts to complement the inadequacy of the Gricean
Co-operative Principle by suggesting a Politeness Principle (PP) based on insights from
Lakoff. He suggests that the Politeness Principle is more important than the Gricean
Principle in communication. He proposes the six maxims of tact, generosity, approbation,
modesty, agreement, and sympathy. These maxims are the essence of Leech’s PP. Although
his proposal is regarded as an addition to the general framework, he is criticized for
overestimating the importance of PP in interaction (Brown and Levinson 1987; Taylor and
Cameron 1987). It should also be noted that there is no limit to the number of maxims that
PP could generate, thus making this model cumbersome. To sum up, Grice’s Co-operative
Principle (CP) suggests that people follow or flout the CP maxims for effective
communication. It indicates that it is important for the speaker to make judgements about
what they say to suit their audience in order to communicate successfully. This means that
audience design is involved where the CP is concerned.
9
It should be noted that ancient Chinese and modern Chinese are very different. Ancient poems and philosophy generally
need to be learnt to be understood in most cases.
32
2.3.2 Face management: face and politeness theory
After having set out the pragmatics basis under 2.3.1, this section looks at the theories
related to face management. It starts with Goffman’s concept of face (2.3.2.1) on which
Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory is based. Lakoff’s Politeness rules are reviewed in
2.3.2.2. We then examine Brown and Levinson’s work (2.3.2.3) in detail and we look at
sociological factors—Power, Distance and Ranking of the imposition of Face-threatening
acts (FTAs) (2.3.2.4). We also discuss the criticisms and challenges raised by many
scholars particularly those from non-western cultures (2.3.2.5). As a useful attempt to
address the problems of Brown and Levinson’s universality claim, Spencer-Oatey’s
proposal of rapport management (2.3.2.6) is discussed. Finally the Chinese concept of face
and politeness (2.3.2.7) will be reviewed.
2.3.2.1 Goffman’s concept of face
Goffman (1967:5) defines face as ‘the positive social value a person effectively claims for
himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact.’ Goffman points
out that face is a social value that people would like to claim. This definition has been used
as a basis for some important work such as that of Brown and Levinson (1987) and
Spencer-Oatey (2000). There are also attempts by other scholars to define the concept
‘face’.
The claim for face is the claim that the other should acknowledge, whether
explicitly or implicitly, that one possesses the claimed virtues.
(Lim 1994:210)
Face is the negotiated public image, mutually granted each other by participants in
a communicative event.
(Scollon and Scollon 1995:35)
The concept of face is about identity, respect and other-identity consideration issues
within and beyond the actual encounter episode. Face is tied to the emotional
significance and estimated calculations that we attach to our own social self-worth
and the social self-worth of others.
(Ting-Toomey and Chung 2005:73)
33
These more recent definitions all seem to share something in common with that of Goffman.
Face is something social or public that one needs to claim and one needs others in
maintaining one’s face-work. Goffman (1967) and Scollon and Scollon (1995) focus on the
encounter itself in their definitions— ‘during a particular contact’ (Goffman) and ‘in a
communicative event’ (Scollons). Ting-Toomey and Chung go beyond ‘the actual
encounter’. This view that face goes beyond the event itself is very important for the
present study as the power relations (as reflected in sociality rights) between all participants
are crucial to the understanding of face-work in the press conference.
2.3.2.2 Lakoff’s Politeness Rules
Before Brown and Levinson, Lakoff (1973:298) proposed three rules of politeness:
1. Don’t impose
2. Give options
3. Make A10 feel good - be friendly
Rule One means that we should not intrude into other’s territory and if we have to intrude,
we should ask for permission first although most of the time, such a request for permission
is more conventional than a real permission request. The common linguistic devices
involved in Rule One are passives and impersonal expressions as they create the distance
between the speaker and the utterance or the distance between the speaker and the
addressee (ibid: 298-299). Rule Two mainly involves the use of hedges to reduce the
certainty of the speaker’s utterances or assertion. The use of euphemism is also included
under Rule Two by Lakoff as the speakers seek to avoid an unpleasant effect by giving the
addressee the freedom not to interpret ‘what is being said as THAT’. Rule One and Rule
Two are very often applied together. Rule Three seems to be the goal of applying politeness,
creating a sense of ‘camaraderie’ between the speaker and the addressee. Lakoff suggested
that expressions like ‘like’, ‘you know’, ‘I mean’ are indicators of Rule Three as they
attempt to make the addressee an active participant (ibid. 300-301). It should be noted that
Rule Three still appears to be the overall goal of politeness as compared to the other two
rules. Lakoff’s Rules of Politeness put forward some useful notions but they do not appear
10
A here refers to Addressee according to Lakoff.
34
to have as wide a coverage as Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory. Lakoff (1990:35)
provides three strategies for her three rules: strategy of distance (impersonality); strategy of
deference (hesitancy); strategy of camaraderie (informality). In different cultures, different
rules and strategies seem to be more important than others.
2.3.2.3 Brown and Levinson’s Politeness theory
Lakoff (1990:34) defines politeness as ‘a system of interpersonal relations designed to
facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation inherent in
all human interchange.’ Brown and Levinson (1987) analyze politeness primarily from the
angle of face in social interaction. The definition of face provided by Brown and Levinson
is ‘the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself’ (1987:61). These
two definitions appear to be different but they are actually very similar. Lakoff’s notion of
conflict and confrontation minimization is similar to Brown and Levinson’s positive
politeness and negative politeness strategies.
Brown and Levinson (1987) suggest that there are two aspects of face: positive face and
negative face. Positive face comes from a person’s desire to be approved of by others, ‘the
positive consistent self-image or ‘personality’ claimed by interactants’ (1987: 61). Negative
face is the desire not to be imposed upon, ‘the basic claim to territories, personal preserves,
rights to non-distraction-i.e. to freedom of action and freedom from imposition’(ibid.). In
social interaction interactants want others to appreciate their positive self-image and to be
free from being impeded in their action, therefore it is mutually beneficial for interactants
to maintain each other’s face.
There are some acts which intrinsically threaten face. Brown and Levinson call them ‘facethreatening acts’/FTAs (1987:60). They make a list of the FTAs for hearer’s negative face
and positive face as well as the linguistic forms that carry out such acts. Table 2.1 is a
summary of such FTAs for the hearer’s face.
35
Hearer’s Negative face
Some acts threaten Hearer’s negative face because they impose on the Hearer’s
freedom of action
Acts that predict some future acts of orders,
Hearer
requests,
suggestions,
advice,
reminding, threats, warnings and dares,
Acts that predicate some positive offers, promises
future act of Speaker towards Hearer
Acts that predicate some desire of compliments,
expressions
of
envy
or
Speaker towards Hearer or Hearer’s admiration or negative emotions
goods
Hearer’s Positive face
Some acts threaten the Hearer’s positive face when they give the impression that the
Speaker does not care about addressee’s wants
Acts that show that Speaker has a Expression
of
disapproval,
criticism,
negative evaluation of some aspect contempt, complaints accusations insults;
of Hearer’s positive face
Acts
that
show
Contradictions or disagreement challenges
Speaker’s Expression of violent emotions
indifference to Hearer’s positive face Irreverence
Bringing bad news about Hearer or good news
about Speaker
Raising divisive topics
Blatant non-cooperation
(mis)use 11 of address terms and other statusmarked identifications
Table 2.1 Intrinsic FTAs to Hearer12 (adapted from Brown and Levinson 1987:65-68)
The author adds the ‘mis’ before ‘use’ to Brown and Levinson’s wording because from the explanation provided by
Brown and Levinson, ‘misuse’ seems to be their intended meaning.
12 In the tables adapted from Brown and Levinson, capital letters are retained in ‘Speaker’ and ‘Hearer’ as Brown and
Levinson use capital letter form. Anywhere else, lower case is going to be used.
11
36
Speaker’s Negative face
Express thanks
Acceptance of thanks or apology
Excuses13
Acceptance of offers
Responses to Hearer’s faux pas
Unwilling promises and offers
Speaker’s Positive face
Apologies
Acceptance of a compliment
Breakdown of physical control
Self-humiliation, acting stupid
Confessions, admissions of guilt or responsibility
Lack of emotion control such as laughter or tears
Table 2.2 Intrinsic FTAs to Speaker (adapted from Brown and Levinson 1987:67-68)
Tables 2.1 and 2.2 appear to give an all-inclusive list to account for all the FTAs. However,
as Hatim and Mason (1997:81) have rightfully pointed out, in different cultures FTAs may
carry a variable weight and some socio-cultural settings where the FTAs take place may
influence the threat level. More scholars’ critical views of Brown and Levinson are
discussed in the next section under 2.3.2.3.
According to Brown and Levinson (1987: 69), the speaker can choose either to carry out
the FTAs or not to carry them out. The latter situation is not a concern for this study. When
the speaker carries out FTAs, there are two different ways to do them, as shown in Table
2.3.
13
It is hard to perceive how excuses can threaten the speaker’s negative face.
37
Without redressive action,
Do FTAs on record
baldly
With redressive action
Positive politeness
Negative politeness
Do FTAs off record
Table 2.3 Strategies to do FTAs (adapted from Brown and Levinson 1987: 69)
If one goes off record in doing a FTA, he/she cannot be held to have intended to carry it out.
For example, if Tom wants to borrow money and he says to his good friend John, ‘I really
need to pay a deposit for a flat that I want to rent but I am only able to pay the deposit next
Friday-- my salary day. I really need to borrow the money if I want to get that flat now.’
Tom has not directly asked John to lend him the deposit money therefore, he cannot be held
to have the intent of requesting John to lend him the money. When people carry out FTAs
off record, they never directly communicate the message or the meaning but use hints to
signal their intended meaning. This means that the intended meanings are negotiable. In the
example, John can choose to pick up the hidden request or he can just treat what Tom said
as a mere statement not as a request. The advantage of this is that neither’s face is hurt on
the surface as no request is put forward and no rejection is voiced.
Carrying out FTAs baldly without redress takes place in rather limited circumstances. For
example, a mother may do this to her child by directly and unambiguously asking the child
to do certain things such as ‘Turn off the TV’, ‘Do your homework,’ ‘Go to bed!’ As
suggested by Brown and Levinson (1987:69), for reasons of urgency or efficiency, bald
FTAs without redress are very likely such as ‘Come in!’ ‘Sit down!’
In contrast, the most complicated face management work comes in when the speaker uses
redressive strategies for negative politeness or positive politeness (See Table 2.4 and 2.5).
38
Attend to Hearer’s interests or wants and
exaggerate interest, approval or sympathy with the
Claim common ground
Hearer
Use in-group identity markers
Seek agreement
Avoid disagreement
Presuppose common ground
Joke
Convey Speaker and Hearer are Presuppose Speaker’s knowledge and concern for
co-operators
Hearer
Offer, promise
Be optimistic
Include both Speaker and Hearer in activity
Give or ask for reasons
Assume or assert reciprocity
Fulfil Hearer’s wants
Give goods, sympathy, understanding to Hearer
Table 2.4 Positive politeness (adapted from Brown and Levinson 1987: 102)
It will be noticed that there is an apparent contradiction between Table 2.4 and Table 2.1:
‘compliments, expression of envy or admiration’ (see Table 2.1) are classified as FTAs to
the hearer’s negative face while at the same time the authors regard ‘Attend to hearer’s
interests or wants and exaggerate interest, approval or sympathy with the hearer’ (see Table
2.4) as a positive politeness redress strategy. According to Brown and Levinson (1987: 66),
the speaker indicates that ‘he likes or would like something of H’s’ when he carries out
such FTAs as ‘compliments, expression of envy or admiration’. When they explain positive
politeness, they (ibid: 103) use an example, ‘What a beautiful vase this is! Where did it
come from?’ This intended positive politeness strategy is also a FTA to the negative face
according to Brown and Levinson. It should therefore be noted that a single act can be both
a negative face threat and positive politeness although Brown and Levinson do not
explicitly point this out. This is important because it will be apparent in our analysis that
one act has both effects. However, it should be clarified that compliments as negative face
threats are culture-specific. For example in Chinese, compliments are not associated with
39
negative face threats. These acts are regarded as enhancing the hearer’s positive face and
not as a threat to the negative face. In Chinese, there is a common way of greeting by
saying, ‘Where are you going?’ This is a typical positive politeness strategy by showing
interest to the hearer but in some cultures this can be regarded as a negative face threat as it
affects the hearer’s freedom of action and privacy. In China, this phrase just functions as a
way of greeting and a specific answer is not expected. Generally, one can respond with a
vague answer like, ‘I’m going out,’ or ‘I’m going to town,’ or ‘I’m going shopping.’
As will be seen, in the data examined in this thesis, positive politeness is used by the
journalists such as showing notice of what the Minister (see 4.1.1.1 Example 13 and see
4.1.4 37) has done (e.g. ‘logging on to the xinhua.com’; ‘you helped a particular farmer
worker named Xiong Deming to get back her wage arrears’) and said (e.g.. ‘last year you
said….’), noticing aspects of an addressee’s condition as being a new Prime Minister and
showing sympathy (e.g.. ‘The pressure you felt…was probably unimaginably intense to the
people in the street,’ see Example 36). The journalists and the interpreters also appear to
use first person plural forms which can function as in-group markers as positive politeness
strategy.
In Table 2.5 it may seem strange to see ‘be direct’ as negative politeness. The reason for
this is because in certain circumstances ‘be direct’ can be a way to minimize the imposition
by coming rapidly to the point and thus avoiding obscurity or asking favours from someone
who is very important and busy.
In being direct, speaker will redress the FTA by being conventionally indirect. Such
conventionalized indirectness is regarded as a compromise between the desire to go on
record to attend to the addressee’s face and the desire to go off record to impose (Brown
and Levinson 1987:70).
40
Be direct
Be conventionally indirect
Don’t presume/assume
Question, hedge
Don’t coerce
Be pessimistic
Minimize the imposition
Give deference
Communicate Speaker’s desire Apologize
not to impinge on Hearer
Impersonalized Speaker and Hearer
State FTA as a general rule
Norminalize
Redress other Hearer’s wants
Go on record as incurring a debt or as not
indebting Hearer
Table 2.5 Negative politeness (adapted from Brown and Levinson 1987:131)
Blum-Kulka (1992:264) suggests that conventional indirectness can help to avoid the risks
of excessive directness between husband and wife. In her empirical studies, she finds that
Israeli people find conventional indirectness more polite than hints and conventional
indirectness is the dominant strategy in Hebrew in requests situations (ibid:265). BlumKulka’s findings are interesting but they are restricted to mono-lingual and mono-cultural
situations. From an intercultural perspective, Spencer-Oatey (2000:25) identifies
conventional strategy types based on Blum-Kulka and Kasper (1989). They are:
1. Suggestory formulae: utterances which contain a suggestion to do something.
2. Query preparatory: utterances containing reference to preparatory conditions (e.g.
ability, willingness)
In the data to be analysed in Chapters 4 and 5, there are instances of conventionalized
indirectness applied (4.1.5) both by journalists and interpreters. The query preparatory
strategy is identified as a recurrent strategy in the data.
‘Give deference’ is another strategy to avoid coercion. Brown and Levinson (1987:178)
suggest that there are two ways of giving deference. The speaker can either humble himself
or raise the hearer. They point out deference indicates that the hearer holds a higher social
status than the speaker. It should be noted that there are circumstances where deference
41
does not reflect a social status hierarchy. For example, the distance between the speaker and
hearer may trigger deferent address terms and the speaker may use deference address terms
to reflect his class or quality. Honorifics as one of the markers of deference will be
discussed in section 2.5 Interactional Parameters.
Returning to Table 2.5, the entry ‘state FTA as a general rule’ may need an example for
illustration. It is common to see such a strategy used in public domains like airports and
train stations. Generally they are presented as a social rule or regulation, for example,
‘Passengers should purchase tickets before boarding the train.’ The rest of the strategies are
relatively easy to understand and will not be discussed in detail.
2.3.2.4 Sociological Factors—P, D, R
Brown and Levinson (1987:15) claim that there are three sociological factors that affect the
level of politeness which a speaker will use to an addressee. These factors are the power (P)
that the hearer has over the speaker, the social distance (D) between the speaker and the
hearer and the ranking (R) of the imposition of FTA. In this study, these three factors are
undoubtedly at play between the primary participants i.e. the Prime Minister/the Foreign
Minister and the journalists. In addition, all the sociological factors affect what the speaker
says to his/her addressee and how he/she says it to his/her addressee. Speakers may need to
modify their utterances to suit their audience due to these factors. For example, an
interpreter may be more frightened to offend the Prime Minister than other participants.
This indicates that these factors are closely linked with audience design.
Power is defined by Brown and Gilman (1960:225) as ‘a relationship between at least two
persons, and it is nonreciprocal in the sense that both cannot have power in the same area of
behaviour.’ Power has an unequal nature and it involves more than one person. The
distinction between power in discourse and power behind discourse has been made by
Fairclough (1989). The former means discourse as a place for power to be utilized and the
latter is concerned with the orders of discourse under the influence of the social orders of
social institutions. The feature of the former is that it allows the powerful participants to
control and constrain the participation of the non-powerful participants in the interaction.
42
The latter is both of ‘the social practice and contributes to the reproduction of social
structures.’ (1989:74)
Examples of power in discourse can be found in face-to-face spoken discourse, crosscultural encounters and mass media discourse where the power relations are hidden/not
clear. In face-to-face interaction there are three constraints on power in discourse (ibid:46)
that are useful for analysis: contents of the discourse; relations of the people in the
discourse and subject positions that people occupy. The power in cross-cultural encounters
is often not equal where the people from a dominant cultural background may hold more
power than those from a minority cultural background in a discourse encounter. In contrast,
the power relation in mass media is less explicit since the media are a channel to express
and reproduce the power of dominant power-holders. Fairclough (ibid.) describes media
relations as mediated relations between power-holders and the general public since very
often the British media’s perspectives are in favour of current power-holders through such
media power relations.
Thompson and Thetela (1995) have carried out similar research. They discuss the power of
the writer and the reader and the power distribution in the interaction by examining the
relationship between the writer-in-the-text and the reader-in-the-text. The example that they
use to illustrate the power relation is the advertisement. If we look at the relation of the
advertiser and the reader from the perspective of power behind discourse, the advertiser is
in a position of superiority over the reader. If we look at it from the perspective of power in
discourse, the large company/advertiser is obviously the less powerful entity than the
reader/customer since the former relies on the latter to purchase its product.
Power in discourse and power behind discourse are co-existent in interactions. For example
in the data of press conferences for this study there are various participants who have
different social power according to the social hierarchy. Among the primary participants
the minister holds the highest power, the correspondents and the interpreter are much less
powerful people in the interaction. However, due to the role that the interpreter plays in the
interaction, he/she often gains limited temporary power of controlling the interaction when
he/she is interpreting (see 3.2.3.3). A similar phenomenon can be observed when
correspondents ask questions to the minister. Fairclough (1989:55) points out that ‘the right
43
to request someone to do something often derives from having power’. During the
interaction, after being granted the right to ask a question the correspondent will gain
temporary control over the interaction and temporary power over the minister by requesting
him to answer a question although the minister regains power in the interaction when it is
his turn to answer the question. With regard to the request to answer the question, the
minister also has total control as to whether he will answer the question and how he
answers the question. Providing that the correspondent is only granted one chance to ask
the question, once the question has been asked, the correspondent does not have any power
in the exchange to make sure that his request is satisfactorily met (see 3.3).
According to Brown and Gilman (in Sebeok, 1964), in their discussion of the pronouns of
power and solidarity, power indicates an asymmetrical and non-reciprocal relationship
since no two persons can have power in the same area of behaviour (ibid: 255). For
example, due to power differences, a person of inferior power may use an honorific form of
address to a person of superior power but he/she may not receive a reciprocal honorific
form of address. For example, in Chinese there is an honorific second person pronoun
‘您/nin’ and it has a non-honorific equivalent ‘你/ni’. A person of inferior power may use
‘您/nin’ to address the person of superior power but the latter may use ‘你/ni’ in return. In
contrast, solidarity indicates a symmetrical and a reciprocal relationship. For example, in
Chinese ‘咱们/zanmen’（our）is addressee-inclusive while ‘我们/women’（also our）can be
addressee inclusive or exclusive. ‘咱们/zanmen’ is often used by the speaker to claim
solidarity with the addressee by indicating in-group membership. Sometimes when a person
uses ‘咱们/zanmen’ in ‘How is our family?’, what he actually means is ‘How is your
family?’ Awareness of power thus has a potential influence on a person’s pronoun usage.
Differences of power exist universally. There are different ways to express power
asymmetry such as by using pronouns or by choice of title and proper name. In face-to-face
interaction it is common to use pronominal coding to express a power relationship. In terms
of solidarity, Brown and Gilman suggest that it is more appropriate if solidarity comes from
‘the elder than from the younger, from the richer than from the poorer…from the female
than from the male.’(1964: 260)
Brown and Levinson provide a rather comprehensive framework of what constitutes face
threats to the speaker and to the hearer and negative and positive politeness strategies as
44
redress. They have claimed a universal validity for their theory which has been challenged
by many scholars.
2.3.2.5 Critiques of Brown and Levinson
Brown and Levinson (1987) build their framework by drawing on data from three unrelated
languages: English, Tzeltal and Tamil. Linguistically and culturally, these three languages
are hardly universally representative. It is therefore to be expected that Brown and
Levinson’s universal claim is challenged by many scholars, particularly those from other
cultures (Ide 1989, Matsumoto 1988, 1989, Gu 1990, Blum-Kulka 1992, Ide and others
1992, Coulmas 1992, Kummer 1992, Mao 1994, Lim 1994, Eelen 2001, Watts 2003,
Bargiela-Chiappini 2003, Vilkki 2006).
Blum-Kulka (1992: 270-271) points out that the constituents of face-wants are not
necessarily universal. For Israelis sincerity and truthfulness in interpersonal relationships
are more important than imposition on the other.
Japanese scholars such as Matsumoto (1988) and Ide (1989) have suggested that the notion
of face proposed by Brown and Levinson is not suitable for Japanese culture where ingroup interests are higher than individual wants. They also question Brown and Levinson’s
perspective of negative face as in Japan a person’s freedom of action is determined by
his/her social status within the group. It is expected for the higher status in-group member
to impose upon the lower status members.
Matsumoto (1989:216) criticizes Brown and Levinson for not emphasizing the social
context in their theory. In Japanese, the social context is crucial in interaction. The social
context is decided mainly by the power relationship between the speaker and the addressees.
The ending of the sentences and the verbs forms vary according to the social context. In
Japanese, it is not possible to say exactly the same words or sentences to different people.
Matsumoto gives an example of a simple sentence ‘Today is Saturday’ (1989:209) and
points out that there are three different ways to say it in Japanese depending on the social
context. Brown and Levinson’s theory clearly does not cover such aspects. She also has
45
problems with Brown and Levinson’s treatment of honorifics as one form of negative
politeness to redress impositions derived from FTAs. In the case of ‘Today is Saturday’, the
first way to say the sentence in Japanese is used with people you are close to. The second is
a polite form and the third is a super-polite form. She (ibid: 217) argues that in cases where
people use the polite and super polite forms, the FTAs are absent and the reason polite
forms are used is because Japanese as a language is sensitive to the social context i.e. the
power relationship between the speaker and addressees. However, Brown and Levinson
(1987:179) did state that ‘honorifics’ are ‘direct grammatical encodings of relative social
status between participants, or between participants and persons or things referred to in the
communicative event.’ From this statement, the way honorifics are viewed by Brown and
Levinson is not really different from Matsumoto’s view. It appears that Matsumoto does
not claim that negative politeness is totally invalid in Japanese culture as she says
(1989:216) that Japanese speakers can imagine possible utterances in accordance with
positive and negative politeness strategies. It appears that negative politeness strategies are
valid and applicable to Japanese contexts but that the concept on its own is far from being
adequate to cover Japanese contexts. This is similar to the situation in Chinese contexts as
well. For Chinese speakers, it is not hard to imagine these negative strategy situations
according to Brown and Levinson’s theory, but there are many aspects that are very
important to Chinese culture but are not included in Brown and Levinson’s work (see
2.3.2.7).
Ide’s (1989) critique of Brown and Levinson is similar to that of Matsumoto, but she goes
further than Matsumoto and makes a proposal to address the problems of Brown and
Levinson’s theory. She suggests (1989:245) two types of linguistic politeness i.e.
discernment and volition. These can be politeness universals and meet the needs of
honorific and non-honorific languages. Discernment (ibid:232) is achieved primarily by the
use of formal linguistic forms and volition is achieved through verbal strategies. Brown and
Levinson, she claims, have neglected discernment. Ide’s suggestion of the inclusion of
discernment is a valid supplement to Brown and Levinson’s theory particularly to
compensate for their universality claim. It is however worth pointing out that Ide restricts
her understanding of Brown and Levinson to the level of pure linguistic politeness. She
limits her own research to the sense of linguistic politeness. Brown and Levinson’s work
should not be understood as a study merely of linguistic politeness and rudeness. Their
46
theory is in essence about face management i.e. managing people’s face wants and
redressing threats. It involves choices (of strategy, of forms) whereas discernment is largely
about socially pre-determined forms.
Watts (2003:1-17) proposes a new way to examine politeness. Distinction should be made
between the lay sense of politeness and the socio-linguistic sense of politeness. The first
sense is referred to as first-order politeness and the second one is referred to as secondorder politeness. The lay notion of politeness basically means to use polite language. The
second-order politeness refers to the socio-linguistic sense of politeness which makes
universal claims. Watts’s focus is on first order politeness and he observes that there is
contention among lay people regarding the nature of politeness: some see it as equivalent to
socially appropriate behaviour, others as self-effacing behaviour or even standoffishness
and insincerity (ibid:1). He indicates that a theory of politeness should be able to ‘locate
possible realisations of polite or impolite behaviour and offer a way of assessing how the
members themselves may have evaluated that behaviour’ (ibid:19) In this way, Watts is
making clear that his concerns (the struggle over what is polite or impolite) are different
from those of Brown and Levinson, whose theory is a theory of face rather than politeness.
Most recently, there has been an attempt to apply politeness theory in a more modern
technology environment such as web-based interaction by Golato and Taleghani-Nikazm
(2006). They try to demonstrate how participants adapt their interaction to the specific
environment of web chats when negotiating issues of face/social solidarity. They analyze
their data through the mechanisms of ‘preference organization’ which distinguishes two
action formats (Atkinson and Heritage 1984; Goodwin and Heritage 1990). According to
Golato and Taleghani-Nikazm (2006: 295), such action formats mean that in social
interaction, one speaker produces the first pair-part such as requests, offers or invitations.
As a response, the second speaker produces the second pair-part such as an acceptance or a
rejection. In the response, some response will be preferred over the other. As they point out,
in English, a preferred response to an invitation is an acceptance. In contrast, a preferred
response to a gift in Chinese is a couple of rejections before an acceptance occurs (cf. also
Gu 1990). If an acceptance comes directly when a gift is offered, it leaves the impression of
greed in Chinese. Golato and Taleghani-Nikazm (2006) seem to suggest that such preferred
47
behaviour is an act of politeness. They find out that their web chat participants follow
preferred conversational behaviour, which is similar to that of ordinary conversations.
Much earlier, Leech (1983:17) had pointed out that politeness helps to avoid disruption.
This conflict-avoidance function of politeness can also be found in Lakoff’s politeness
definition (see 2.3.2.2), in Gu (1990:239) and Ide’s (1989:225) notion of smooth
communication, as well as in Blum-Kulka’s idea of having ‘interpersonal harmony’ (1992:
277). Eelen (2001:29) states that the nine most important politeness works have revealed
common features of politeness, i.e. social indexing and the function of conflict-avoidance.
This conflict-avoidance notion has been investigated in much detail by Spencer-Oatey
under a similar label, Rapport Management.
2.3.2.6 Spencer-Oatey’s rapport management
One of the most successful attempts to go beyond the framework developed by Brown and
Levinson is Spencer-Oatey (2000), who proposes the term Rapport Management. Brown
and Levinson’s framework focuses on western views of politeness which emphasizes
individual identity and needs. In this respect, it is quite unsuitable for Chinese interaction
situations. In China, how an individual fits into the social group and how individuals are
viewed by the collective are said to be more important factors (see Matsumoto 1988:405
and Spencer-Oatey 2008:271). Spencer-Oatey’s model addresses the perceived inadequacy
of Brown and Levinson’s framework by viewing communication from a social relations
perspective rather than from an individual’s face wants’ perspective.
It will be noted that the whole debate about Brown and Levinson’s work has been
conducted in terms of monolithic notion of culture: ‘Japanese culture, Chinese culture,
western cultures’. This is true of the major works quoted so far: Matsumoto, Gu, Ide,
Spencer-Oatey, among others. For example, Gu (1990:240) refers to ‘The Chinese
conception of politeness’ and ‘Chinese culture’ and (1990:242) describes the behaviour of
‘a European.’ Spencer-Oatey (2008:31) makes generalizations about ‘Chinese speakers’
and ‘British people’. It has to be acknowledged that this treatment of cultures as if they
48
were uniform and monolithic is deeply unsatisfactory. Indeed Spencer-Oatey (2008:3)
recognises this problem in the Introduction to her work, where she claims:
in this book, ‘culture’ is operantionalized primarily in terms of ethnolinguistic and /or
national or regional political identity… This is not to deny the cultural element in
other types of groupings, nor is it meant in any way to imply that members of these
groups are a homogeneous set of people.
It does not fall in the scope of this thesis to resolve these problems which deserve much
deeper investigation. Nevertheless, the behaviour described as Chinese culture in this
review should be understood as observed tendencies rather than as national cultural
characteristics.
Brown and Yule (1983) suggest that there are two functions of language: the transactional
function (to convey information) and the interactional function (to maintain social
relations). Spencer-Oatey’s theory focuses on the interactional aspect of language. Her
model defines the relation between the group and the self. What makes her model different
from other politeness theories is that her model does not only discuss face management but
it covers other aspects of managing good social relations, such as the management of
sociality rights and interactional goals (as defined below and also see 3.3). She considers
that Brown and Levinson’s notion of positive face as a concept is not adequately specified
and their notion of negative face concerns are not necessarily face concerns.
Spencer-Oatey’s conceptualization of face is similar to Goffman’s. According to her, face
is closely connected with one’s self: self as an individual; self as a group member; and self
in relationship with others (2000:13). She suggests that face is associated with many
aspects such as one’s sense of worth, dignity, identity, respect, honour, status, reputation
and competence (Spencer-Oatey and Franklin 2009:109). To address the problem of Brown
and Levinson’s theory being centred on the individual’s face wants, Spencer-Oatey
examines communication as social relations and she proposes rapport management.
Rapport management includes three interlinked parts (2000:13.):
1. the management of face (face sensitivities)
2. the management of sociality rights and obligations (social expectancies)
49
3. the management of interactional goals
In each particular interaction, there are not only face sensitivities involved but also the
sociality rights and interactional goals are important factors. Face has three important
aspects: a. individual identity (a person’s sense of self as an individual); b. group identity (a
person’s self as a group member); c. relational identity (a person’s sense of self in
relationship with others). People associate certain characteristics such as personality,
physical features, language preferences and other traits in these three aspects (ibid.). By
interactional goals Spencer-Oatey (ibid.) means ‘the specific task and/relational goals that
people may have when they interact with each other.’ As indicated by its definition, each
participant in the same interaction may have different interactional goals. They may adopt
different strategies according to their goals. For example, at an interview, an interviewer’s
interactional goal may be finding out if the interviewee’s qualities and qualifications are
suitable for the job while the interviewee’s interactional goal may be persuading the
interviewer that he/she meets all the job specifications.
Sociality rights refer to ‘fundamental social entitlements that a person effectively claims for
him/herself in his/her interactions with others’ (ibid.). Fraser and Nolen (1981) propose a
conversational-contract view14of politeness, which is similar to Spencer-Oatey’s sociality
rights. The conversational-contract suggests that in any given conversation, all the
participants have an understanding of the set of rights and obligations that they expect from
each other (Fraser 1990:232). However, Spencer-Oatey’s notion has a wider coverage as it
includes
contractual/legal
agreements
and
requirements,
explicit
and
implicit
conceptualizations of roles and positions and behavioural conventions, styles and protocols
(2000:15). Spencer-Oatey’s rapport management is a much more comprehensive way to
examine any interactive event than a mere politeness perspective.
In her latest work, Spencer-Oatey identifies the competencies that influence rapport
management (see Table 2.6).
Contextual awareness
Sensitivity to the key features of the interaction such as
14
Fraser (1990) puts forward four main ways of viewing politeness: the social-norm view, the conversational-maxim
view, the face-saving view and the conversational-contract view.
50
the participants’ relations, people’s roles and the nature of
the interaction
Interpersonal
Paying attention to people’s sensitivities, behaviour
attentiveness
expectations and interaction goals
Social
information Gathering relevant contextual information
gathering
Social attuning
Using indirect signals such as paralanguage (intonation,
speed of speech, pauses) and non-verbal communication
Emotion regulation
Ability to handle criticism and embarrassment and get
along with people who are different
Stylistic flexibility
Using strategies flexibly so that they are congruent with
people’s rapport sensitivities
Table 2.6 Rapport Management Competencies (adapted from Spencer-Oatey and Franklin
2009:102)
Of the items in the list of competencies, the last four are akin to good common sense.
Participant relations (as in contextual awareness) are similar to the concept of power and
distance in Brown and Levinson’s work. Most of these competencies can be observed in
our data (except social information gathering).
Spencer-Oatey also discusses (Spencer-Oatey and Franklin 2009:117-118 also SpencerOatey 2000:33) people’s orientation towards rapport, as shown in Table 2.7.
Rapport enhancement orientation
A desire to enhance harmonious relations
with interlocutors
Rapport maintenance orientation
A desire to maintain harmonious relations
with interlocutors
Rapport neglect orientation
A lack of interest of harmonious relations
with interlocutors
Rapport challenge orientation
A desire to challenge or damage harmonious
relations with interlocutors
Table 2.7 Rapport Orientations
51
With a close look, it is easy to detect that only rapport enhancement orientation should be
qualified as rapport management as the other three clearly conflict with the very word
‘rapport’.
Spencer-Oatey proposes strategies to manage rapport - linguistic strategies of
expressiveness and linguistic strategies of restraint. However, these strategies are not her
original ideas. They are based on Scollon and Scollon’s (1995:40) strategies i.e. strategies
of involvement and strategies of independence. Scrutiny of the examples used by Scollon
and Scollon (1995:40-41) and Spencer-Oatey (2009: 120) for their suggested strategies
shows that they are actually based on Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies.
Moreover, it is noted that Spencer-Oatey identifies the link between face management and
audience design when she states that
Face-management norms seem to be ‘number-sensitive’ in that what we say and
how we say it is often influenced by the number of people present, and whether
they are all listening to what we say’ (2000:36)
Although she does not explicitly link face management with audience design, her
statements clearly indicate an awareness of audience design.
To sum up, the approach this thesis adopts is mainly based on Brown and Levinson’s
politeness theory because for the purpose of investigating audience design, their account is
more useful than others. Brown and Levinson’s work is largely about face work rather than
about being polite/impolite as in the work of Watts (2003). This is not to dismiss Watts’
theory, it is just that Brown and Levinson’s face work theory is closer to the focus of the
thesis. Spencer-Oatey’s work also provides an account of face work within an overall
rapport management framework. Her strategies proposal does not appear to be an advance
on Brown and Levnison’s proposal but only offers a different label for politeness strategies.
This is why Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategy nomenclature is adopted as it is the
most comprehensive framework for data analysis. On the other hand, Spencer-Oatey’s
rapport management components such as interactional goals and sociality rights are very
52
useful for describing the context of the naturally occurring data analysed in this thesis and
thus they are adopted in the study (see 3.3).
2.3.2.7 The Chinese concept of face and politeness
It may be appropriate to introduce Chinese concepts of face and politeness as the data of the
present study are in English and Chinese. Gu (1990) provides a historical review of the
meaning of politeness ‘Li’ (in Chinese). However, in the early stage when ‘Li’ was
formulated by Confucius it did not mean politeness. It referred to ‘the social hierarchy’ and
‘slavery system order’ (1990:238). Two or three hundred years later, ‘Li’ acquires the
meaning of politeness. Gu points out that the ‘social hierarchy’ and ‘politeness’ are closely
linked. ‘Politeness’ derives from ‘social hierarchy’ and observing ‘politeness’ helps
maintain social order.
Gu (1990:239) suggests that there are four notions essential to Chinese politeness:
respectfulness, modesty, attitudinal warmth and refinement. The first two are quite
straightforward. ‘Attitudinal warmth’ means that one should demonstrate kindness,
consideration and hospitality towards other people. ‘Refinement’ means that one’s
behaviour towards other people should meet certain standards.
Gu’s critique of Brown and Levinson has two aspects. The first is that Brown and
Levinson’s negative face concept is not applicable to Chinese culture. Gu gives a dinner
invitation as an example. When a speaker asks a favour from a hearer, (in Chinese) the
speaker’s face is at risk while it may be that in the west, the hearer’s negative face is at risk.
When speaker A invites hearer B for dinner15, it is normal and expected for the hearer B to
say no. The speaker A has to insist on inviting hearer B again and again after the rejection
to show his sincerity to invite (1990:242). It does not make hearer B look good if he
immediately accepts speaker A’s invitation because it makes hearer B look greedy and
eager to let speaker A pay for the dinner. Gu points out that when an invitation or offer is
made in Chinese, the hearers’ negative faces are not at risk. What he does not point out is
that the speaker’ face is at risk in such circumstances. When a speaker asks his hearer for a
15
In Chinese culture, generally the person who invites other people for dinner will pay the bills.
53
favour, the speaker’s face is at risk of rejection and embarrassment. This is why in Chinese
when
a
speaker
asks
a
favour
from
his
hearer,
the
speaker
may
say,
‘给点面子。/你不会这点面子都给吧’/‘Come on, give me some face/ You are not going to not
give me such a bit of face?’ If the hearer wants to reject, he/she needs to try very hard to do
it in such a way that it does not hurt the speaker’s face.
However, it should be noted that, although Gu’s point about negative face is correct, there
are negative face concerns in Chinese. When people are making requests, they tend to make
them less direct and show considerations of hearer’s optionality. The difference in negative
face concerns between Chinese perspectives and the Brown and Levinson perspective lies
in the fact that when requests or invitations take place, it is primarily the speaker’s positive
face that is at risk in Chinese. This means that the speaker’s positive face concerns
outweigh the negative face concerns of the hearer. The speaker does try to be indirect but
not so much for the sake of reducing the imposition on the hearer but to reduce the risk of
their own face being rejected.
Gu’s other critique of Brown and Levinson is that their notion of politeness is only of an
instrumental nature while Gu thinks that politeness should also be of a normative nature.
He considers that Brown and Levinson regard face as wants but not as norms or values and
it is preferable for people to attend to other’s face wants. Gu suggests that politeness is
more of a normative constraint on people in the Chinese context and that Brown and
Levinson overlook this aspect (1990:242). It is true that the Chinese context is primarily
characterised by politeness as a normative constraint only. In Chinese culture, observing
politeness norms is expected and such observance brings honour and enhances one’s
reputation. Honour and reputation are essential to being socially functional in China. It is
the risk of social sanction that makes politeness a normative constraint in the Chinese
context.
Gu provides four maxims to illustrate16 the Chinese notion of politeness:
a. The Self-denigration Maxim
b. The Address Maxim
16
Gu (1990) in this article aims to provide an illustrative not a comprehensive discussion of the Chinese conception of
politeness.
54
c. The Tact Maxim
d. The Generosity Maxim
There are two ways to achieve self-denigration, either by denigrating oneself or by
elevating the other. The effect should be that the speaker always puts him/herself lower
than the hearer. This maxim corresponds with the two notions of Chinese politeness i.e.
respectfulness and modesty. One is supposed to self-denigrate when he/she refers to
himself or his belongings and even family (ibid: 246). For example, a husband may refer
to his wife as 贱内(cheap/humble wife) or his son as 犬子 (dog son). Gu gives an example
of asking people’s name in Chinese, ‘您贵姓/Your precious surname’ to illustrate this
maxim. What can be added to this example is the typical answer that is expected for this
question, ‘免贵，姓…. ‘remove the precious, my surname is…’
The address maxim indicates that appropriate address terms are expected in Chinese
interaction. This maxim corresponds with the notions of respectfulness and attitudinal
warmth. The maxim may be universally applicable but it differs in what constitutes an
appropriate address term. For example, unlike in many western countries , first names are
only used by close family members and surnames are used for people outside the family.
Kinship names such as grandpa, uncle, brother are used as polite address terms. You may
address a stranger who is around the age of your grandpa as ‘grandpa’ to be polite. Gu also
points out that occupation titles can be used as address terms in Chinese as a mark of
respect. In the data, there is evidence for such use. The minister refers to the journalist
who asks the question as Mr. Journalist in his reply.
The tact maxim is similar to that of Leech (1983). In essence, it minimizes the cost of
one’s action. For example, when a speaker is performing an invitation, he/she should
indicate that it does not cost them much trouble at all. The generosity maxim means the
maximization of the benefit. In the same example of invitation, the hearer, in responding,
should maximize the trouble caused to the speaker. Gu points out that speaker’s
impositives will be hearer’s commissives and vice versa.
Two principles underly the Chinese concept of politeness: sincerity and balance. The
principle of balance suggests that one has to return politeness. For example, if a speaker
55
invites a hearer to a meal (which means that the speaker pays the bill), the hearer is
indebted to the speaker and is supposed to pay back the debt by inviting the speaker back. It
is very common for people to give money as gifts at weddings in China and it is crucial for
the bride and groom to remember the exact amount from each guest to make sure that they
will give back the appropriate amount when a suitable/payable occasion comes up for each
guest. It should be added that the balance principle is closely linked with one’s honour and
reputation. If someone fails to return what he/she should, his/her reputation will be
tarnished and he/she will face social sanction.
Face is equivalent to two Chinese terms: ‘lien’/lian and ‘mien-tzu’/mianzi. Hu (1944)
distinguishes these two concepts of face. ‘Mien-tzu’ represents ‘the kind of prestige that is
emphasized in this country: a reputation achieved through getting on in life, through
success and ostentation’ (1944:45). This kind of face is gained through an individual
personal effort and clever way of dealing with things. In contrast, ‘lien’ is ‘the respect of
the group for a man with a good moral reputation: the man who will fulfil his obligations
regardless of the hardship involved’ (1944:45). ‘Lien’ emphasizes the confidence the
society has in an individual’s moral character. ‘Lien’ is ‘both a social sanction for enforcing
moral standards and an internalized sanction.’
It can thus be seen that face is a universal phenomenon but what constitutes face is
culturally specific. On the basis of Hu’s work, Bond and Huang (1986) put face behaviour
(in Chinese) into six categories:
1. enhancing one’s own face. An individual may try to show certain qualities that are
appreciated in his social network to enhance his face.
2. enhancing the other person’s face. People usually enhance the other person’s face by
paying compliments conforming with their opinion or doing nice things for them.
3. losing one’s own face. Losing face is a very serious issue in China. An individual will
not only lose his face if his conduct is considered to have failed to meet the moral standards,
but he will be accused of losing the face of someone or some group with which he is
associated.
56
4. hurting the other person’s face. In a very status-conscious society it is very important for
an individual to be sensitive to his relationship with people around him. It is a general rule
not to hurt the other person’s face, especially those who are in a superior position.
5. saving one’s own face. Trying to save one’s own face usually happens when some facelosing events have happened. The actions that can be taken to save one’s own face can be (a)
compensatory action, where the face-losing person may take compensatory action to restore
his face; (b) retaliatory actions, where the face-losing person may quarrel with or fight back
against those who made him lose face; (c) self-defensive actions, where the face-losing
person may devaluate his opponent or reduce the seriousness of the face-losing event.
6. saving the other person’s face. Criticizing or rejecting one’s request may be regarded as a
face-hurting act; therefore the Chinese are reluctant to criticize others and will try to take
some compensatory action if they have to turn down a request. Generally, people will try to
save the other person’s face to maintain the harmony in their group.
Chinese perceptions of face as reviewed above provide useful insights for the data analysis
to be conducted in Chapters 4 and 5. For example, the notion of respectfulness and the
maxims of address are reflected in the address terms in Chinese such as ‘nin’/‘honorific
you’. The notion of attitudinal warmth is represented in the ways the Chinese journalists
greet the minister. From how the Chinese journalists address the minister and greet the
minister, it can be seen that certain behavioural standards have been followed and this
reflects the notion of refinement that is observed. Enhancing other’s face by paying
compliments as identified by Bond (1986) is observed in the Chinese journalists’ questions.
It is important to keep in mind that the corpus is a multi-cultural event, that there are
Chinese participants and non-Chinese participants and that their perception of face can be
different. Therefore, it is essential to draw insights from Chinese perspectives.
In summary, 2.3.2 has reviewed the principal face management theories. It covers western
and Asian perspectives as well as Chinese perspectives. Face as a central concept to
politeness can go beyond the particular encounter itself. As indicated by Spencer-Oatey,
face is universal in the sense that ‘everyone has concerns about face’ (2000:14). It is more
likely for politeness to be universal from this sense than claiming universal applications for
the politeness strategies, as Brown and Levinson have done. It is essential to acknowledge
that the FTAs and the weighting of each FTA are culture-specific. The query-preparatory
57
strategy as a conventional indirectness strategy is helpful for analysing journalists’
questions because some journalists often preface their question with some preparatory
conditions to offset the upcoming FTAs. The views regarding power (such as the social
context/power relationship in Japanese culture), which underlie sociality rights, may differ
in different cultures. The weighting of individual identity and group identity vary from
culture to culture. The analysis of the data in this thesis will adopt Brown and Levinson’s
politeness strategies nomenclature as they are the most comprehensive framework. The
analysis is supplemented by the Chinese perception of face which provides cultural-specific
insights for the face management strategies of the Chinese participants. Spencer-Oatey’s
rapport management theory provides the interaction information aspects such as sociality
rights and interactional goals.
2.4 Information Management
Interpreters do not only need to manage rapport/face during communication; they need to
effectively manage the information that is intended to be communicated (see 2.5 for Brown
and Yule’s distinction between the transactional function and the interactional function).
Investigating how the interpreter manages information can help us find out if interpreters
modify their utterances to suit the audience that they intend to serve. As we have reviewed
one important element of communication i.e. face management in 2.3, in this section, we
shall review another important element in communication events i.e. information
management. Speech production and speech reception can help us gain insights into
interpreting events in the present study as interpreters are both speech receivers and speech
producers. We shall focus on a pragmatics-based approach by introducing the notion of
Relevance Theory (2.4.1) and the concepts of presupposition (2.4.2) and explicitation
(2.4.3). How the participants manage the information has effects on the communication
processes.
2.4.1 Relevance Theory
Relevance theory was introduced into pragmatics by Sperber and Wilson and saw a very
rapid development during the period 1986-1995, marked with the two editions of Relevance
58
(Sperber and Wilson 1986, 1995). It is based on one of the co-operative principles i.e.
Relation (relevance), although the authors claim to replace rather than extend Grice’s
theory. The objective of relevance theory is ‘to identify underlying mechanisms, rooted in
human psychology, which explain how humans communicate with one another’ (Sperber
and Wilson 1995: 32).
Although in the study of communication, the code model (c.f. the conduit model, see
section 2.1.5) has long been regarded as the general theory, it has been criticized for its
inadequacy (Fodor 1983; Sperber and Wilson 1986; Sinclair 1995) According to this model,
communication is achieved by encoding and decoding messages (Sperber and Wilson
1995:2). Sperber and Wilson point out the defect in the code model: ‘comprehension
involves more than the decoding of a linguistic signal’ (ibid:6). They argue that
communication is achieved by producing and interpreting evidence. The gap between the
semantic representation of the utterances and the thoughts communicated by the utterances
can be filled by inference. Although they consider that the inferential mode of
communication is more comprehensive than the code model, they consider that ‘verbal
communication involves both code and inferential mechanisms’ but ‘upgrading either to the
status of a general theory of communication is a mistake (ibid: 2).’
According to Sperber and Wilson, there are two ways of conveying information, i.e. either
by providing direct evidence for the information to be conveyed or by providing direct
evidence of one’s intension to convey the information (ibid:23). Ostension means
displaying the intention to make something manifest to somebody (ibid: 49). An act of
ostension is ‘a request for attention’ (ibid: 155). As Sperber and Wilson claim, human
communication all aims at maximum cognitive efficiency in information processing (ibid:
49), that is why ostension serves as a guarantee of relevance. It is presumed that an optimal
level of relevance exists in every act of ostensive communication (ibid: 158). The
assumptions intended by the communicator from the ostensive stimuli are relevant enough
for the addressee to process. The ostensive stimuli are the most relevant and are easily
accessible (ibid.158)
In order for effective communication to take place, context is vital. A context is ‘a
psychological construct, a subset of the hearer’s assumptions about the world’ (Sperber and
59
Wilson 1995:15). It is important for the speaker and the hearer to share some common
premises to ensure that the hearer can infer the information intended by the speaker. Such
common premises are the context. In connection to the present study, interpreters need to
be able to make assumptions about which premises are shared by the speaker and the
hearers and which are not shared by them.
Sperber and Wilson introduce the notion of contextual effect, which is crucial for the
comprehension process. Just adding new information to old information does not produce
contextual effects. Contextual effects arise when an utterance modifies some assumptions
from the context (ibid: 117). Contextual effects include: contextual implications (a result of
interaction between old and new information), contradictions (new information is against
the old assumptions) and strengthenings (new information provides evidence for the old
assumptions) (ibid:109). Sperber and Wilson argue that ‘having contextual effects is a
necessary condition for relevance’ and ‘the greater the contextual effects, the greater the
relevance.’(ibid:119)
The notion of context has been applied in translation and interpreting by many scholars
(Gutt 1991, Baker 2006, Gonzalez 2006, House 2006, Mason 2006a, Setton 2006,
Gonzalez 2006). Baker (2006) illustrates how power influences the context of interpretation
and argues that power and dominance influence are part of the processes of
contextualization. Gonzalez (2006) investigates the negotiation of context in court
interpreting. House (2006) concludes that the process of re-contextualization in translation
has been dominated by English as the lingua franca and English conventions. Other
languages and cultures are marginalized in the process. Mason (2006a) adopts Carston’s
(2002) underdeteminacy principle and emphasizes the underdeteminacy of meaning in faceto-face interpreter-mediated communications and the impact of interpreter choices on the
communication. He highlights the importance of using authentic interpreting data. Setton
(2006) illustrates the need to adapt Gutt’s application of relevance theory in translation to
the setting of simultaneous interpreting. In our study, context is supplied from the
perspective of community of practice and the sociality rights and interactional goals and
participation frameworks.
60
People may have different representations of the same physical environment due to
differences in perceptual and inferential abilities (ibid.38) and this is why Sperber and
Wilson introduce the notion of ‘cognitive environment’. They dislike the term ‘mutualknowledge’ and ‘shared information’ as they think the first term is ‘empirically inadequate’
and the second term too vague.(ibid:38). The term that they prefer is ‘mutual-manifestness’,
which emphasizes conceptual cognition instead of visual cognition. According to them:
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.
What is ‘manifest’ to an audience may not be known or assumed. This means that
‘manifest’ is a weaker notion than ‘knowledge’ and ‘assumption’ (ibid:40). This is why
Sperber and Wilson are reluctant to use the term ‘mutual-knowledge’ as it must be certain
or it does not exist.
The most famous claim made by Sperber and Wilson in relevance is referred to as the
Principle of Relevance (it is called the second/communicative principle of relevance by
Sperber and Wilson 1995): ‘Every act of ostensive communication communicates a
presumption of its own optimal relevance.’ (ibid: 158). This means that every speaker is
presumed to produce the most relevant utterances for his/her hearers. This principle
indicates that Sperber and Wilson regard communication as ostensive-inferential
communication (ibid:155). The claim is referred to as the Principle to contrast with other
pragmatic principles such as Grice’s co-operative principle. Apart from this Principle of
Relevance which concerns communication, there is one other principle of relevance which
concerns cognition. They claim that human cognition tends to be geared to the
maximization of relevance (ibid: 260). This means that people tend to process the most
relevant inputs for efficiency reasons. This is a more fundamental principle and this is why
they call it the first/cognitive principle of relevance.
Relevance theory is helpful for the study of interpreters’ behaviour because according to its
first principle of cognition, the interpreter’s interpretation should aim to derive as many
contextual/cognitive effects as possible for as little processing effort as possible. According
to the second principle, the speaker will communicate the most relevant utterances and the
61
hearer’s task is to find an interpretation to meet his/her expectation of relevance. The
interpreters are both hearers and speakers in interpreted events. As communicators, they are
bound to devise their interpreting strategy to increase contextual/cognitive effects and
reduce processing effort to assist their hearers who are from a different cultural and
linguistic background. Meanwhile, they need to find an interpretation of the speaker’s
utterance which meets their expectation of relevance and then provide their hearers with the
most relevant interpretation that they can produce to the best of their abilities. Falkum
(2007) has applied relevance theory to assist her study on the strategy of narrowing (being
specific) and broadening (being general). According to her finding, such a strategy of
narrowing or broadening is a by-product of the hearer’s search for relevance.
Relevance theory has been criticized because it is ‘asocial’ (Talbot 1994:3525) or
‘reductionist’ because it places the pragmatic theory inside a general theory of cognition
(Levinson 1989:455-456). In this thesis we should use relevance theory only in terms of the
management of information. The social side will be covered by the face management (see
Chapter 4).
Relevance theory has been applied to translation by Gutt (1991，2000) in his attempt to
formulate a general theory of translation. He concludes that relevance theory alone is
adequate to formulate a framework for translation studies because ‘the phenomena of
translation can be accounted for by this general theory of ostensive-inferential
communication’ (1991:189).
Gutt (1991:188) regards translation as an act of communication (c.f. Hatim and Mason
1997). Speakers are generally regarded by Sperber and Wilson as ostensive communicators
and translators naturally are regarded as ostensive communicators by Gutt.
In relevance theory, Sperber and Wilson distinguish ‘descriptive use’ and ‘interpretive use’.
Gutt defines ‘interpretive resemblance’ as ‘mental representations whose propositional
forms share logical properties with each other in virtue of which shared logical properties.
Such resemblance between propositional forms is called interpretive resemblance’ (1991:34
c.f. the definition by Sperber and Wilson 1988). In order to clarify the vagueness of what
qualifies as resemblance, Gutt (1991:102) suggests ‘it [the translation] should be expressed
62
in such a manner that it yields the intended interpretation without putting the audience to
unnecessary processing effort.’ The notion of processing effort helps distinguish Gutt’s
interpretative resemblance from the ‘faithfulness’ notion in translation. However, there may
be cases where it is hard to determine which uses more processing efforts than the other
alternatives. Descriptive use in relevance theory can account for translation instances when
the relationship to the original is incidental rather than crucial (e.g. pop songs) and
interpretive use can account for instances when it is important to resemble the original (e.g.
legal documents).
Gutt has made a rather brave claim that relevance theory is adequate for translation studies.
He is naturally criticized for taking the interlinguality of translation for granted and
overlooking the translator as a decision-maker (Tirkonnen-Condit 2002: 194). Setton
(1999:10) points out that due to language differences, what is implicit and explicit in a
source text may not be translated as implicit and explicit in the target text, as Gutt has
suggested. On this point, as will be seen in Chapters 4 and 5, the present study provides
plenty of evidence that what is implicit may be translated to be explicit and vice versa for
reasons of face management or information management.
In summary, although the criticisms of both Sperber and Wilson and of Gutt appear to be
valid, they do not attack the basic principle of ‘maximum contextual effect for minimum
processing effort.’ In my study the model is restricted to the management of information
instead of being treated as a comprehensive theory of communication/translation. That is
why it will be applied to the analysis of interpreter’s management of information in Chapter
5.
2.4.2 Presupposition
In communication, there is information being communicated without being clearly stated. It
should be noted that shifts in presupposition is actually closely related to audience design
because translators/interpreters need to constantly make their decisions on what
presuppositions are shared between source and target text readers/hearers and what are not
shared and adopt appropriate strategies. Presupposition and entailment both represent such
63
phenomena. Presupposition refers to ‘something the speaker assumes to be the case prior to
making an utterance’ (Yule 2003:25) In contrast, entailment means ‘something that
logically follows from what is asserted in the utterance’ (ibid.). The difference between
presupposition and entailment is shown in their definitions. The former is about the
speaker’s assumptions while the latter is about the logics embedded in utterances. In this
study, it will be observed that there is a shift between what is presupposed by the source
speaker and what is presupposed by the interpreter. We are looking at shifts in
presupposition to investigate the interpreter’s behaviour. The speakers are the key
component of the analysis, therefore, the concept of presupposition is more relevant than
entailment. We therefore focus on presupposition in the review.
There are different categories of presupposition—a. existential presupposition; b. factive
presupposition; c. lexical presupposition; d. structural presupposition (Yule 2003:27-28).
There are linguistic indicators of such presuppositions. In the case of existential
presupposition in English, possessive constructions and definite noun phrases are
associated with presupposed existence. For example, ‘my teddy bear’ presupposes the
existence of a teddy bear or ‘the magician’ presupposes that there is a magician. This
presupposition tactic can be very useful for journalists as they can presuppose unconfirmed
information as truth in their interaction with interviewees. For example, a journalist may
ask some celebrity ‘How much did your divorce cost you?’ when actually it is only a
rumour that this celebrity got divorced.
The indicators for factive presupposition include words like ‘know’, ‘regret’, ‘odd’, ‘be
aware’, ‘glad’. For example, when we say that ‘I regret that I bought that expensive hat,’ it
means that I already bought an expensive hat. Among the indicators for lexical
presupposition are ‘stop’, ‘start’, ‘manage’. Lexical presupposition is used to presuppose
something unstated and seems to be very similar to factive presupposition. The distinction
is made in the sense that a certain lexical expression presupposes something that is implied
but not clearly stated whereas factive presupposition presupposes the truth of the
information stated. For example, when we say ‘You missed your dental appointment
again,’ we indicate that the addressee has missed the appointment before without stating it
64
in the sentence. If we ask ‘how did you manage to persuade the bank to lend you the
money?’ we indicate that the addressee has succeeded in borrowing money from the bank.
There are certain structures that have the function of presupposing information. The Whstructure and how-structure are often the indicators. For example, when we say ‘when did
you quit smoking’, we presuppose the information stated after ‘when’ is true. The ‘How’
structure has similar presupposition effects in sentences like ‘How did you pass your
driving test?’ Presupposition can be a very useful questioning tactic for journalists. They
often presuppose rumours/not confirmed information to be true in their questions in order
to put pressure on their addressees.
One important property of presupposition that has been acknowledged by both Yule
(2003:26) and Fawcett (1998:117) is constancy under negation. This means that
presupposition remains constant under negation. In other words, what is presupposed to be
true in the positive form is presupposed to be true in the negation form. For example, if I
say, ‘I do not like my wardrobe.’ A wardrobe’s existence is presupposed the same way as in
‘I like my wardrobe.’
Grundy (1995:78) suggests that non-linguistic knowledge and linguistic forms are both
important for producing presuppositions. This indicates that real world knowledge plays a
role in this process. For example, if we say, ‘The Chinese Emperor is going to visit Europe
during the Chinese New Year,’ this presupposition does not hold if we use real world
knowledge as there is no Chinese emperor now in China. However, if we look at this
sentence from purely linguistic perspective, the presupposition of the existence of a
Chinese emperor holds. This highlights the fact that it is important to study presupposition
not merely from a sentence-based perspective. A perspective where a speaker in a real
context is a key component is more relevant when interaction is investigated.
Presupposition has been widely studied from various perspectives: presupposition as nonassertions (Abbott 2000), presupposition as anaphora (Jaszczolt 2002), abstract nouns as
presupposition triggers (Schmid 2001) and embedding words and presupposition (Simons
2007). However, these studies all take a sentence-based perspective. A de-contextualized
sentence-based approach will not be adequate for this study. The importance of a discoursal
65
approach has been indentified by Brown and Yule (1983:29) and when discourse analysis is
adopted, pragmatic presupposition is necessary. These authors borrow from Givón
(1979:50) the suggestion that pragmatic presupposition is ‘defined in terms of assumptions
the speaker makes about what the hearer is likely to accept without challenge’. Similarly,
Leech emphasizes the importance of the speaker in defining presupposition: ‘In saying X
the speaker S purports to take for granted the truth of F’ (1981:287). It is observed that
presupposition is also attributed to the speaker in Yule’s definition (2003, see above). The
present study will adopt a discourse analysis approach towards presupposition rather than a
sentence-based approach because the focus of the study is on the whole interaction,
involving speakers and hearers.
Werth (1993:40) argues that the notion of context17 (verbal or non-verbal) is essential for
any adequate explanation of the facts of language. Naturally context is closely associated
with presupposition. Cui (2008) studies advertising translation from the angle of
presupposition with emphasis on the importance of context during the translation process.
He points out that flexibility and creativity are essential for advertising translation. Cui’s
research provides evidence for a target-oriented translation approach as the purpose of the
translation and the target audience may need a more flexible translation strategy.
Ke (1999) provides evidence that cultural presupposition by translators leads to
translational misreading. Cultural presupposition is defined by Ke as referring to
‘underlying assumptions, beliefs, and ideas that are culturally rooted, widespread, but rarely
if ever described or defined because they seem so basic and obvious as not to require verbal
formulation’ (ibid.: 133-134). El-Gamal (2001:57) confirms Ke’s finding and points out
that unshared presupposition can be problematic in translation such as when cultural
concepts are conveyed with expressions which hold presupposition.
Chen (2008:84) points out that there are two kinds of presupposition -- linguistic and nonlinguistic - and the latter is mainly contextual and cultural presupposition. She states that
‘not all target text readers can be assumed to possess the same knowledge as the source text
readers have due to the cultural differences between them.’ For this reason, she highlights
17
See 2.4.1 for the review of context.
66
the importance for the translator to design their translation to meet the needs of the target
readers (ibid.).
In examining how presuppositions are used by different participants, particularly how they
are handled by the interpreters, we can discover the decisions and judgements that the
interpreters have to make about their audience. This helps investigate the influence of
audience design on interpreters.
2.4.3 Explicitation
Explicitation is usually considered to be a natural phenomenon in translation. Some regard
it as it as one of the universals in translation (Blum-Kulka 1986; Gile 1995; Baker 1996;
Laviosa 1998). For example, Blum-Kulka suggests (1986:21) ‘it might be the case that
explicitation is a universal strategy inherent in the process of language mediation, as
practiced by language learners, non-professional translators and professional translators
alike.’
Vinay and Darbelnet (1995: 342) define explicitation as ‘a stylistic translation technique
which consists of making explicit in the target language what remains implicit in the source
language because it is apparent from either the context or the situation. Excessive use leads
to overtranslation.’ Nida (1964:226-230) also discusses ‘explicitation’ when he introduces
the techniques of adjustment in the process of translation. He puts explicitation as one of
the nine types of additions:
a. filling out elliptical expressions; b. obligatory specification; c. additions required
because of grammatical restructuring; d. amplification from implicit to explicit status; e.
answers to rhetorical questions; f. classifiers; g. connectives; h. categories of the receptor
language which do not exist in the source language; i. doublets
He looks at the explicitation phenomenon in the translated text as a shift from implicit to
explicit status that occurs when ‘important semantic elements carried implicitly in the
source language may require explicit identification in the receptor language’ (1964: 228).
According to Nida’s categories, it seems that he puts explicitation under addition. Actually,
67
the relation between explicitation and addition is a controversial issue. Which one is the
more general concept is the focus of the controversy. One group supports the overriding
nature of explicitation (Vinay and Darbelnet 1995; Vanderauwera 1985; Blum-Kulka 1986;
Séguinot 1988; Øverås 1998) while the other group takes the opposite position (Nida 1964;
Newmark 1990). In this research, addition is seen as part of the phenomenon of
explicitation.
There are many corpus-based studies of explicitation. Blum-Kulka (1986) conducted a
comparative analysis of translations of English-Hebrew. Its findings indicate that there is a
high increase in the cohesive explicitness from source texts to target texts. She proposes the
explicitation hypothesis, stating that ‘The process of interpretation performed by the
translator on the source text might lead to a TL text which is more redundant than the SL
text. This redundancy can be expressed by a rise in the level of cohesive explicitness in the
TL text.’(1986:19). This means that there is cohesive explicitness from SL to TL despite
the linguistic differences between languages. The explicitation hypothesis is the attempt to
indicate that explicitation is inherent in the process of translation.
To test the explicitation hypothesis, Øverås (1998) examined the bi-directional EnglishNorwegian Parallel Corpus and it was discovered that the level of explicitness in all target
texts, whether in English or in Norwegian, was increased compared to their source texts. A
comparable corpus-based study was conducted by Olohan and Baker (2000) studying the
use of reporting ‘that’ with the verbs say and tell. They used TEC i.e. the Translational
English Corpus and BNC, the British National Corpus. Their findings suggest that
translation shows a tendency towards explicitness as there is a higher occurrence of the use
of ‘that’ after ‘say’ and ‘tell’ in the translational corpus as compared to the non-translation
corpus.
Olohan (2001) further tests this tendency. She chose to investigate the reporting ‘that’ after
a less common verb promise and compared the same two corpora. The findings support the
claim of the previous study that explicitness is a feature of translated texts. In 2003, in her
comparative study of translated and non-translated fiction and biography, she analyzed the
use of contractions. Her findings support the claim that translated texts tend to use more
lexical, syntactical and discoursal devices to make text more explicit than non-translated
68
texts in the same genres (Olohan 2003:80). Other studies which support the explicitation
hypothesis include Séguinot (1988), Weissbrod (1992), Shlesinger, (1995); Laviosa (1998),
Bosseaux (2001), Winters (2004), Klaudy (2005), Saldanha (2005).
These studies support the validity of the tendency towards explicitation as a universal
feature, independently of language pairs and text types in the translation process. However,
Pym (2005:31) criticizes the explictation hypothesis for being restricted to cohesive
explicitation and the markers that connect the texts together. It does not address issues like
cultural explicitation. Pym (ibid:34) proposes to model explicitation within the framework
of risk management. He points out that there are many risks for translation. It seems the
risks suggested by him are mainly concerned with the professional survival of translators or
interpreters. He discusses high-risk and low-risk translation problems but his risk
management framework seems to consist of practical advice to translation professionals on
how to deal with various risk-involved translation problems through explicitation. This may
provide a reasonable explanation or justification for the use of explicitation but it is
unlikely to be a framework that accounts for the phenomenon of explicitation.
In the literature, there are some negative comments about the use of explicitation. For
example, ‘Translators lengthen their texts out of prudence but also out of ignorance.’
(Vinay and Darblenet 1995: 193). Such comments may contain some truth but they oversimply the phenomenon of explicitation. It should be argued that shifts in explicitation are
closely linked to audience design because translators/interpreters need to constantly make
their decisions on what is shared between source and target text readers/hearers and what is
not shared and therefore needs to be made explicit in the TT.
Explicitation is involves in this study, we hope to find out if audience design is a
motivation for the use of the strategy of explicitation.
The categorization of explicitation in translation research is based on Klaudy’s model
(1998:82–84), which identifies four types-- obligatory, optional, pragmatic, and translationinherent explicitation.
69
Obligatory explicitation is motivated by the linguistic difference between two languages
such as differences in morphological, grammatical, semantic structures; for example, in
Chinese the kinship system is very complicated. The simple word ‘uncle’ (‘aunt’ as well)
can be very hard to translate into Chinese if all necessary kinship relationship details are
not known. It is essential to make ‘uncle’ explicit in Chinese. If the ‘uncle’ is a friend or
colleague of the parents, it can be translated as ‘shushu’ (if he is younger than the child’s
father) and as ‘dabo’ (if he is older than the father). It is even more complicated if the
‘uncle’ is a family member: is he related to the nephew/niece as in-laws or are they bloodrelated? Is he a brother of the father of the child or is he a brother of the mother? Is he a
younger brother of the father or is he older than the father? All these questions have to be
answered before you know how to translate the term. In our data, when the interpreter
refers to a farmer worker ‘Xiong Deming’ as ‘she’, it is an obligatory explicitation because
the name ‘Xiong Deming’ does not tell the gender of the person. When the interpreter
needs to use an English personal pronoun to refer to ‘Xiong Deming’, she has to make the
gender explicit.
Optional explicitation is more often motivated by stylistic preference to make the TT
sound more native-like language. In the data, for example, when the interpreter refers to the
farmer worker ‘Xiong Deming’ as ‘Mrs. Xiong’, the addition of the title is optional because
the interpreter can interpret without making the marital status of ‘Xiong Deming’ explicit.
Such explicitation may be motivated by a desire to conform to the tradition of referring to
married women as ‘Mrs.’ in English.
Translation-inherent explicitation is language-independent and it occurs in the translation
process. For example:
Source:
你也喝绿茶？
Literal translation: You also drink green tea?
Translation:
So you drink green tea too?
Here the adverbial ‘so’ is not obligatory but is an optional addition. It increases cohesion in
a way that the source text does not. If translated back into Chinese, the adverbial can easily
be retained. Therefore, the relations between explicitation and implicitation here are
70
asymmetric. This occurrence of explicitation is attributed to the translation process, not to
the language pair.
Séguinot (1988:108) suggests the term 'explicitation' should therefore be reserved in
translation studies for additions in a translated text which cannot be explained by structural,
stylistic, or rhetorical differences between the two languages. In other words, to prove that
there was explicitation, there must have been the possibility of a correct but less explicit or
less precise version. This is the only way to distinguish between choices that can be
accounted for in the language system, and choices that come about because of the nature of
the translation process.
It seems that the distinction between optional explicitation and translation explicitation is
not very clear-cut.
Pragmatic explicitation is considered to be equivalent to cultural explicitation18 (Perego
2003: 7-8). It plays the role of filling the gap in cultural assumptions between ST and TT
users. For Chinese and English, between which there are huge cultural differences, cultural
explication appears to be an important device to assist the hearer’s comprehension of the
speaker’s utterances. For example:
Source:
三农问题
Literal translation: three agriculture issue
Translation:
three agriculture issue which concerns the rural area, the agriculture and
the farmers
Here the translation makes the source text explicit by adding in what ‘the three agriculture
issue’ refers to in China. The source text has a very specific cultural reference in China and
its reference is unlikely to be universally shared. The cultural gap is thus filled by
explicitation in this example.
In this study, the term ‘cultural explicitation’ instead of ‘pragmatic explicitation’ is adopted to refer to the concept in
order to avoid unnecessary confusion about the word ‘pragmatic’ in its stricter Gricean sense.
18
71
The focus for the present study is primarily on cultural explicitation as well as some
instances of optional explicitation because instances in these two categories form a trend.
In the corpus, cultural explicitation takes two forms—a. addition; b. specification.
I
consider the term ‘addition’ as the insertion of extra materials such as new words and new
content in the TT, which were not explicitly represented in the ST. The term ‘specification’
indicates the replacement of a general broad word or words with a more specific word or
words, with more detailed and clearer denotation and/or connotations. Perego (2003:11)
points out that addition indicates quantitative presence while specification implies a
qualitative shift, which may not necessarily involve extra linguistic elements.
The counterpart of explicitation, i.e. implicitation, has not been studied very much.
Implicitation is defined by Vinay and Darbelnet (1995:344) as ‘A stylistic translation
technique which consists of making what is explicit in the source language implicit in the
target language, relying on the context or the situation for conveying the meaning. Nida
mentions it briefly under the term of ‘subtraction’. He notes that implicitation is not as
commonly used as explicitation: ‘Though, in translating, subtractions are neither so
numerous nor varied as additions, they are nevertheless highly important in the process of
adjustments’ (Nida 1964:231).
Klaudy (2001) examines the relationship between explicitation and implicitation. She
investigated bi-directional translation of Hungarian and English, German, French and
Russian. She proposes the ‘asymmetry hypothesis’ which means that explicitation in A
language to B language does not always mean implicitation from B language to A language.
Following this line, Klaudy (2005) conducted more empirical work with the language pair
of English and Hungarian to further test the validity of the asymmetry hypothesis by
analyzing bi-directional translation of reporting verbs in literary works. Her findings
suggest that the translators tend to prefer explicitation to implicitation in both directions.
This supports the explicitation hypothesis as a universal translation strategy.
Klaudy (2005:15) points out that both explicitation and implicitation can be automatic
operations or conscious strategies. She indicates (2005:16-17) that obligatory explicitation,
72
is generally symmetrical but cases of asymmetry are also observed in translation of English
and Hungarian.
This study’s findings provide empirical evidence for explicitation research in interpreting
settings. In our corpus, the interpreters appear to have adopted a strategy of explicitation
when working from Chinese into English while a tendency of implicitation/indirectness is
discovered in interpreting from English into Chinese.
2.5 Interactional Features/Parameters
We now introduce the parameters that will be used for data analysis in Chapters 4 and 5. As
suggested by Brown and Yule (1983), there are two functions of language: the transactional
function (to convey information) and the interactional function (to maintain social
relations). For this reason we shall adopt these two functional categories in examining our
language data i.e. the face management strategy and the information management strategy.
Bell (1984:161) points out that audience design can be investigated through the speaker’s
linguistic choices such as the form of speech acts, pronoun choices and the use of
honorifics. In order to find evidence of audience design in our data, we shall choose a set of
parameters which allow us to carry out textual analysis of face management and
information management in interaction. Through an initial observation and a pilot study, it
is suggested that there are a few interactive features (as listed below) which are distinctive
face management and information strategies in the corpus.
The selected parameters that will be used as indicators of face management strategies are
address terms, deference (see 2.3.2.4), pronoun choices, (in)directness and conventional
indirectness (2.3.2.3).
The value of parameters such as terms of address, deference and pronoun choices for the
purpose of investigating audience design is fairly straight forward. Such parameters are
important as they illustrate how the speaker positions him/herself in relation to the
73
addressee. (In)directness and conventional directness are closely linked with managing
face work. Face management also indicates how a speaker positions him/herself towards
the addressee. Analyzing these parameters reveals how interpreters manage face. Pronouns
that are especially useful for this study include the first person plural and its possessive
forms (we/our), which are linked with the status of solidarity (when they are being used or
added) and a negative-face strategy (when omission of such personal references occur). The
other pronoun which is helpful for our investigation is the honorific of the second person
pronoun in Chinese i.e. ‘您/nin’ (honorific).
The parameters that will provide evidence of information management consist of
presupposition (see 2.4.2) and explicitation (see 2.4.3). Speakers make presuppositions in
relation to the assumptions that they make about their audience. How interpreters relay
presuppositions provides evidence of the extent to which the interpreter changes or does not
change the assumptions about the audience. Explicitation has become very important in
translation studies and it has been included as an entry in the Encyclopedia of Translation
Studies (Maker 1998). Explicitation is closely related to presupposition and it requires the
speaker making the judgement of whether expliciation is needed in view of the particular
audience that he/she is designing for. These two parameters can provide evidence for how
the speaker designs information for his/her audience. Examining how interpreters carry out
information management allows us to find evidence of audience design influence on the
interpreters’ performance.
In relation to the third objective of the thesis (see 1.2), these selected parameters will help
us to carry out the analysis to seek evidence of audience design in the interpreted evidence.
2.6 Conclusion
In this chapter, we have identified areas relevant to our study and from them we have
constructed a theoretical model that is appropriate for the investigation of the aims of our
study. We have firstly reviewed the accounts of relevant interpreting studies to identify the
mode of interpreting, the influence of the community of practice and the interpreting norms
as well as the role of interpreters. Secondly, we have reviewed the theory of audience
74
design and participation framework which provide a basis for dividing the data according to
the different participation framework at each turn of the speakers. Thirdly and fourthly, we
have developed a theoretical model to analyze interpreted interaction in data from studies
of face management and information management. Finally, we introduced the parameters
that function as indicators of interaction in the data. In the next chapter, we shall consider
methodological issues and describe the specifics of the corpus of naturally occurring data
that was collected for the purpose of fulfilling the aims of the research.
75
CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY AND DATA DESCRIPTION
This chapter is devoted to the methodological issues and the data description that will
enable us to achieve the aims and objectives set out in Chapter 1, based on the theoretical
framework suggested in Chapter 2. The broad methodological orientations will be reviewed
in 3.1. The specifics of the corpus including the compilation of the corpus, the press
conferences as a genre and a community of practice are described in 3.2. Finally, specific
methodological approaches such as the transcription conventions, categorizing shifts and
the participation frameworks will be discussed in 3.3.
3.1. Major Methodological Orientations
Bell (2001:168) proposes a three-layered approach to language analysis. Quantification
provides frequency information of selected stylistic features. Qualitative analysis may not
be applicable to all the individual occurrences but it can ‘illuminate’ the interpretation
derived from the quantitative evidence. The third layer analysis focuses on ‘the cooccurrence of different features in stretches of language.’ We will adopt a combination of
this three-layer approach in the present study.
Quantitative analysis is able to provide a more objective and reliable approach than the
intuition based approach. It enables us to note the features with a significant recurring
frequency rate and the potential directions worthy of discussion. It can provide figures and
statistics which can be viewed as rather objective evidence for the claims to be made.
However, it does have its own drawbacks. For example, de-contextualized figures may not
allow us to make interpretations taking into account the ideological, cultural or social
factors or implications (Widdowson 2004:120). Qualitative analysis may compensate for
such flaws because it involves wider contextual factors to shed light on more dimensions. It
helps us to see language use in a wider scope and identifies links between
process/activities/performance and possible motivation. Both quantitative and qualitative
analysis focus on one parameter at a time. Therefore, an analysis of the larger sequences
(see 4.4) will be carried out for the face management to see the accumulated effects of the
co-occurring face management parameters.
76
In the case of this thesis, there are some features which are countable (e.g. the occurrence
of terms of address and pronoun choice) but there are many features that are not countable
(e.g. directness and indirectness). When features are countable, quantitative tables and
figures are provided. When features are not countable qualitative analysis alone is provided.
There are also other features which are countable but the countable results are not useful or
are even misleading due to the difference between the two languages (e.g. in Chinese the
personal pronoun ‘你/you’ can be translated as ‘you’ and ‘your’. If a word count is needed
for ‘你/you’ as the person pronoun, the counting results are not accurate since they will
include the occurrence of their adjective forms). For these reasons most of the analysis in
this study is qualitative analysis as is common in the majority of work on the pragmatics of
interaction.
The hypothesis of a correlation between the interpreter’s performance and audience design
in a dialogue interpreting setting suggests the interaction under investigation is a very
dynamic process. Much written translation research deals with more static processes such
as processes at linguistic, discourse or pragmatic levels. In an interpreting event such as is
studied in this thesis, however, there are more dimensions that have to be discussed, such as
speaker and audience expectations, their communicative goals (see 3.2.3.), participants
present at the communicative event and particular contexts and situations (see 3.2.2. and
3.3). In light of this, the research will apply both quantitative analysis and qualitative
analysis.
Moreover, the choice of data carries the same weight as the methods analysis. What always
poses challenges to interpreting researchers is access to authentic interpreting data.
Researchers may be denied access to interpreting data for reasons such as confidentiality or
the reluctance of the interpreters or the institutions involved. Therefore, much research has
to be carried out based on experimental or simulated data. Experiments and simulations
undoubtedly avoid the problem of obtaining permissions and can possibly save some time.
There are, however, many undesirable aspects of such data. They are artificial so they may
not represent the actual situation and settings. They may fail to trigger the spontaneous
reaction of participants that is characteristic of a real life context. The awareness of being
77
observed and being analyzed by researchers may influence participants’ behaviour. They
may try to modify their behaviour in order to be more useful for the research.
In this study, authentic data have been obtained. Details of the data are introduced in the
next section (3.2.). The IPC started in 1998 with Prime Minister Zhu Rongji. From the year
2000, the Foreign Ministry started to hold a similar IPC. Until 2008, there have been 11
IPCs for the Prime Minister and 9 IPCs for the Foreign Minister. It can be stated from
observation of the last IPC held in 2008, that there is no major change in the IPC as a genre.
The SARS outbreak in 2003 also triggered topic-dedicated press conferences. However,
these press conferences are not the concern of this research.
The corpus-based approach adopted in this study provides evidence from three sets of
authentic linguistic data. The total duration of the corpus is nearly four hours of continuous
speech. Given the fact that the analysis has to be done manually, the corpus is at the upper
limit of the scale of a PhD thesis. The corpus provides evidence of three different
interpreters’ behaviour. It can be said that their behaviours are very similar to each other,
due perhaps to the selection, training, institutional requirement and assessment (see 3.2.3)
they have to undergo. From the observation of the press conferences by the author every
year, there is no particular evidence that including more interpreters would provide
evidence of a different interpreting style. Therefore, it is considered that the corpus is
representative enough for interpreters within the IPC genre. Nevertheless, the corpus-based
approach is not free from limitations. However large the corpus is, it can only represent a
proportion of all possible situations and can therefore never be claimed to be thoroughly
representative19.
3.2 Corpus and Data
This section characterizes the data and lays a foundation for the analysis in Chapters 4, 5. It
introduces the background to the data, the press conferences as a genre, the community of
practice, and the interactional goals and sociality rights of participants.
19
It should be noted that a comprehensive corpus, including all IPCs so far, could not have been thoroughly analysed
within the scope of one thesis. Moreover, many doctoral theses in interpreting studies rely on evidence from relatively few
interpreters (e.g. Roy 2000, based on one 30-minute interpreting sequence).
78
3.2.1 Description of the Corpus
The data used for the research comprise three interpreted press conferences taking place
between 2003 and 2005. The press conferences are broadcast live and are in no way
designed for research like this. Given the fact that the press conferences are broadcast on
public television, it can be assumed that they are publicly available and subject to scrutiny
and analysis. Some of the press conference recordings have been made available to the
public as English-language-learning or translation-learning materials.
The interpreted press conferences are referred to as IPC1, IPC2 and IPC3 in the study. IPC1
was held on March 14th 2005 for the Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, IPC2 was held on March
18th, 2003 for Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and IPC3 was held on March 6th, 2003 by the
Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing. The data included in the corpus comprise three different
press conferences, two different ministers and three different interpreters. The temporal gap
between the data is 2 years. Therefore, the corpus represents a variety of key participants
and stretches over a span of three years. The format of the press conferences remains the
same.
Table 3.1 shows a few basic figures of the data concerning the duration, the number of
questions and turns of replies, for each IPC.
Duration
Number of questions
Number of
reply
turns20
IPC1
115 minutes 20 13
15
seconds
IPC2
68 minutes 43 10
15
seconds
IPC3
40 minutes 12 6
43
seconds
20
The journalists usually have only one turn to ask questions while the minister can have as many turns as he likes in his
replies. Thus the number of turns for questions is the same number of questions but there are normally more than one
conversational turn in reply to a question.
79
Total
224 minutes 15 29
73
seconds
Table 3.1. Description of the Data
Of the three press conferences IPC1 is transcribed from a video recording, made when it
was broadcast on TV. However the duration of IPC1 cannot be claimed to represent the
standard duration of a Minister’s press conferences because it was extended for another 20
minutes and was then further extended for another three questions from the journalists.
IPC2 and IPC3 are transcribed from two audio-tapes released and sold as English learning
materials (Huang and Shen, 2002). Video material can provide much more non-linguistic
data than audio materials such as the physical arrangements of the room, the seating
arrangements of the participants, the facial expressions and body language.
The interpreting is done in consecutive mode in the data. A distinctive feature is that the
turns are fairly long and the interpreters do not attempt to interrupt the speakers to get their
turn. The interpreting style is therefore closer to conference (monologue) interpreting than
to dialogue interpreting (cf. Mason 1999). The interpretation available at the press
conferences is only English and Chinese. Therefore, the international media have to use
either Chinese or English to ask the questions. Participants involved in the speech events
are, of course, not aware that their speech may be used as research data. Therefore, their
behaviour is unlikely to be influenced by the research.
3.2.2. Press Conferences as a Genre
In this thesis, we understand genre as being ‘(conventional forms of texts) which reflect the
functions and goals involved in particular social occasions as well as the purposes of the
participants in them,’ (Hatim and Mason 1990: 69). This definition is particularly relevant
to the analysis in the thesis because the function and the goals of the press conferences and
the purposes of all participants including interpreters in the event are all relevant to the
aims of this research.
80
There are some studies about political discourse such as Lakoff (1990), Wilson (1990) and
some studies about the relationship between politics and media (Fairclough 1998, Schaffner
1997; Van Dijk 1998), but there are not many studies about press conferences as a genre of
communication. Among the limited number of studies, Smith (1990) and Eshbaugh-Soha
(2003) focus their attention on American presidential press conferences. A more recent
study by Bhatia (2006) investigates communicating political differences in a positive way
in spite of the socio-political and ideological discrepancies.
Bhatia suggests that press conferences as a genre include a broad range of conventionalized
communicative events covering areas like sports, religion, business and others (2006:175).
Political press conferences are a subcategory of the genre and fall under political discourse
and media discourse. They are recognized for their conventionalized rules of talk and action.
The participant contributions and the running order/process are often pre-allocated and
institutionalized (ibid. 176). The data in my study do provide evidence for such recognised
conventions of political press conferences.
The data used in Bhatia’s research includes press conferences of the former Chinese
President Jiang Zemin and the Former American President Bush, however, it does not
mention anything about the interpretation of the press conferences or the translation of his
secondary data (e.g. statements, commentaries, political analysis). It is highly likely that
President Jiang spoke only Chinese at the press conferences yet Bhatia’s analysis leaves the
impression that the Chinese President spoke English all the time. It is a flaw in his research
that the data (of President Jiang) he uses are presented as original data but they are actually
interpreted and edited data.
Eshbaugh-Soha (2003) comments on the importance of press conferences by claiming that
‘Press conferences are one of the most important means to communicate to the media and
public’. It may either be the president’s decision (president-centred approach) or social
factors (the presidency-centred approach) that lead to the holding of press conferences.
Regarding the determinants of the frequency of press conferences, the two different
approaches have different solutions. In the president-centred model, the individual
president’s preferences decide the frequency of press conferences. By contrast, in the
presidency-centered model, it is not entirely up to the president’s personal preferences to
81
make such decisions. In China, the news release system was formally established in 1983
(Jing and Liu 2004:55). Press conferences start to be better regulated from this point. Jing
and Liu point out that there are four kinds of press conferences (ibid: 54): the question-andanswer type of press conferences; the news release; meeting the journalist by appointment;
and informal interviews. According to the subject matter, they can be categorized as routine
press conferences, such as the regular press conferences held by the Foreign Affairs Office,
and topic-specific press conferences (Zhou 2005), such as the SARS press conferences, the
Olympics press conferences. The data studied in this thesis seem to fit into the category of
question-and-answer based press conferences, with China’s domestic and international
policies and affairs as their subject. In the data the tradition for the annual televised
interpreted minister press conference started with the election of Primer Zhu Rongji in 1998.
This is probably why people tend to give him the credit for starting the tradition of the
high-level interpreted live press conference. Premier Zhu is often regarded as someone who
welcomes transparency in the government, and initiating interpreted press conferences can
be a good way to show this. Therefore, the data here seem to support the claim that the use
of the press conference is a function of individual presidents (in this study it is the ministers)
and their decisions.
In the case of the United States there are two tendencies regarding the frequency of
presidential press conferences. One tendency is the decline of press conferences since the
Truman administration, which is believed to be a result of technological advances (Hager
and Sullivan 1994) because presidents have more options of communication channels to
convey messages to the public. Among all the options, press conferences provide a setting
that allows reporters to ask very difficult and confrontational questions, and the president
has to give an immediate response; therefore, it is not surprising that presidents prefer a
channel of communication which causes less embarrassment and confrontation. The
opposite tendency appeared after the Hager and Sullivan study. Presidents Bush (Senior)
and Clinton used more press conferences than their predecessors. President Bush used press
conferences to control information the media disseminated about him (Nelson, 1998).
Therefore the conclusion reached by Hager and Sullivan that technological factors and
political context have reduced the frequency of press conferences is true only during certain
periods of time and locations. A more cautious argument is that technological and
contextual factors influence the frequency of press conferences.
82
However, in the data studied here the influence of contextual factors is opposite to that of
the American press conferences. In the case of Chinese televised press conferences,
technological advances make it possible to hold such press conferences, and it is owing to
economic development and political reform that the series of such press conferences have
been brought into existence. All these contextual factors take credit not only for starting the
tradition of press conferences but also for the increasing number of televised interpreted
press conferences.
The venue for the annual Premier’s interpreted press conference (IPC) is the Great Hall of
the People which is the home of China's governing body, the People's Congress. It is a
venue for large-scale meetings, conventions and banquets when the People's Congress is
not in session. The press conference usually takes place in mid-March after the National
People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
(CPPCC) have completed their annual sessions. Some press conferences take place during
the two week-period when NPC and CPPCC are in session. These conferences are
organized for NPC and CPPCC.
The IPC is one of a series of press conferences but it differs from others in its participants.
Three participants/groups of participants make the press conferences in my data the most
distinctive. The first will be the speaker-- the minister (in these data two prime ministers
and one foreign minister) who represents the highest level of government officials, the
second is the audience present at the press conferences which includes the international
media. Other press conferences restrict themselves to the national media only, and this
introduces the next important participant—the interpreter, the mediator for this speech
event.
IPC1 is the only source for some visual evidence of seating arrangements at the IPC. Table
3.2 illustrates the physical arrangement of the primary participants in the speech event. It
appears that there are 4 people sitting together with the Prime Minister at a table at the front
of the hall. Among the 4 people there are the interpreter (all female in the data), Mr. Jiang
Enzhu who is the organizer/chairman of IPC and the NPC and CPPCC spokesman and Mr.
Kong Quan who is the spokesman for the Foreign Affairs Ministry. There is one person
83
whose identity is not clear despite many efforts made by the author. The name of the
interpreter is not identified either. Kong Quan seems to be responsible for choosing who
should take the floor for questions and Jiang as the organizer/chairman is the person who
invites the minister and the correspondents to speak. He seems to be involved in controlling
the duration of the press conference. He takes the floor to announce that the press
conference will be extended on two occasions in IPC1.
There seem to be over 700 journalists present at IPC1 despite the fact that there are over
2,000 journalists who are reporting NPC and CPPCC sessions (according to IPC1 opening
statement).
Table 3.2 Configuration of participants (IPC1)
A
B
C
D
E
Table 3.2 is drawn on the basis of the video recording of the ministerial press conference in
2005. The five letters A, B, C, D, E represent respectively Guo Rui (the Director of the
84
News Bureau of the National People’s Congress), Jiang Enzhu (Congress News Spokesman)
as the organizer of the press conference, the Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, the interpreter and
Kong Quan (the Spokesman of the Foreign Affairs Ministry) as the chairman of the press
conference. A long table where A, B, C, D, E are sitting is symbolized by a long rectangle.
The role played by A/Guo is rather vague since he is silent throughout the press conference.
B/Jiang starts the press conference by introducing the Prime Minister and expressing
gratitude for the participation of the Prime Minister and the journalists at the end of the
press conference. He also announces when an extension of the duration of the press
conference is granted by the minister. E/Kong chooses journalists to ask questions. The
cameras usually focus on the minister and the journalist when they have the floor. In
contrast, the interpreters rarely get camera exposure when they have the floor. When they
are interpreting the cameras seem to roam around the room. The three sets of small
rectangles represent the areas where the journalists are sitting and the number of lines does
not represent the actual number of lines of seats.
3.2.3. A Community of Practice
This section examines the materialization of the community of practice (see Chapter 2) for
the Chinese government interpreters. As pointed out by Mason (2003: 175), whether the
institutional translation cultures and guidelines influence the translators of these institutions
in any uniform way is a question that remains under-explored. Therefore, a description of
IPC interpreters as a community of practice will be useful for an understanding of the
context in which the event takes place. For the interpreters in the data, no official guidelines
or code of practice are available, either for the public or for the interpreters themselves
(Qian 2008 and Sun 2008). The code of practice is communicated by word of mouth (ibid.).
All the interpreters are provided by the Department of Translation and Interpretation (DTI)
of the Foreign Affairs Ministry. It is well-known that the DTI has very well-developed and
systematic training methods and code of practice but for reasons of confidentiality it is very
hard for outsiders to have access to such information. The interviews with the government
interpreters and direct observation are the primary source for the description.
85
3.2.3.1 Selection and Training
The interpreters who work for the IPC are generally selected and trained by the DTI (Zhao,
2007; Qian 2008; Sun 2008; Li, 2008). The selection/recruitment process includes written
and oral examination organized by the Foreign Affairs Ministry (Sun 2008) and the
National Civil Servants Examination organized by the government (these interpreters are
all civil servants). The successful candidates have to pass both of the exams before they are
considered as trainees. Generally, the most competent and talented (Qian, 2008; Li, 2008)
candidates are selected and they usually already have a degree (bachelor or master) in
translation and interpretation. The initial training is also a selection process. There are
exams during this period and only around 50% of the trainees will be able to proceed with
further training (Sun 2008). The trainers are usually experienced translators and interpreters
in the department (Sun 2008). During the training, the principle of ‘faithfulness, accuracy
and completeness’ is established as an unwritten code for these trainee interpreters to
follow. An important part of the training is listening comprehension, note-taking
(completeness is an essential criterion), established glossaries (memorizing is the essential
tool for mastering the glossaries that have been formalized as providing the ‘correct’
translation/interpretation), government policies (it is imperative to know the Chinese
government’s policies and its positions on important issues such as Sino-US relations and
interpreters are required to constantly update their knowledge by reading government briefs,
important statements and decisions), discussion of new glossaries and difficult terms. The
next stage is on-the-job training. These trainees start to work for low ranking meetings like
the meeting at directorate level, state banquet, and senior government negotiations. The
successful completion of this stage marks the transition from a trainee to a professional
translator/interpreter in the department (ibid.). In summary, entry to the profession is highly
selective. Interpreters consider themselves to be highly skilled. Their professional practice
includes regular familiarization with government policies and discussion of new glossaries
and difficult terms (see above). Their resources in preparation for the press conferences
automatically include these elements (Zhao 2007, Qian 2008, Sun 2008, Li 2008).
86
3.2.3.2 Standards Guidelines
The primary criteria for government interpreting are ‘faithfulness’, ‘accuracy’ and
‘completeness’ (Zhao,2007; Qian 2008; Sun 2008; Li 2008). ‘Faithfulness’ appears to be
the most important standard regulating the interpreter’s performance. Faithfulness seems to
imply that interpreters should be as literal as possible even at the risk of compromising
comprehension (Sun 2008; Li 2008). Deviating from the literal interpretation of even
lexical items may trigger a complaint from policy makers/authors of the political discourse
and government officials who are monitoring the interpreters. It seems that lexical choices
in such political discourse have been made very carefully and at times interpreters may not
know the nuances in seemingly similar words. Therefore, interpreters should just be faithful
to the words used by the speaker to maintain the political correctness of the discourse
(Zhao,2007;Qian 2008; Sun 2008; Li 2008).
Zhang Jianmin (2002), who has been working for the President and Prime Minister’s press
conferences for a few years, has admitted that some terms with very strong Chinese
characteristics (such as ‘三讲’ as ‘three stresses’ and ‘三个代表’ as the ‘three represents’ )
may involve more processing efforts for foreigners who do not have much knowledge
about China. So when there is not an equivalent word in the target language, the
translator/interpreter has to choose to be faithful to the source text and it is hard to avoid the
use of Chinese English (Chinglish). Moreover, interpreters should not try to clarify the
utterances of the speaker since they should be just faithful to the speakers’ words (Sun
2008). The ‘completeness’ principle is likely to have similar reasons to the principle of
‘faithfulness’ for these government interpreters. Words which seem to be redundant to the
interpreters may be carefully chosen by policy makers/politicians. It seems that interpreters
are not entrusted with much decision-making power regarding the content of the words.
Faithfulness, accuracy and completeness are very closely related concepts. If faithfulness is
observed, accuracy is achieved. If faithfulness is pursued to a very extreme level,
completeness (even at the lexical level) is guaranteed. In addition to these principles, the
interpreters’ pronunciation is expected to be standard and their delivery is expected to be
fluent and smooth. (Sun 2008).
87
3.2.3.3 Turn-taking
The press conferences in the study take place in institutional discourse settings which are
characterized by systematic turn-taking. The participants’ turns are regulated by their preturn allocation and institutionally assigned roles. Unlike talk show interviews, which
display conversational discourse features like spontaneous role-switching and questionasking by the show guests and the audience (role shifts as both addressee and addresser:
Ilie:1999:976), press conferences follow more rigid institutional rules. For example, taking
a turn to ask questions is not spontaneous but allocated and only one turn will be given to
the journalist (with one exception when the prime minister asks the journalist a question
before he answers the journalist’s question). No follow-up questions are allowed (although
the journalists generally attempt to squeeze into their turn as many questions or subquestions as possible). No interference is expected from the journalist when the Prime
Minister or the interpreter is taking their turn and violations of institutionally-based
constraints and norms are not tolerated in the interaction. The turn-taking system in the
press conferences consistently follows the pre-established order. The interaction patterns in
press conferences are more predictable and norm-regulated. Thus, journalists are free to
pursue their own interactional goals but only within strict limits. They have the power to
challenge but not to pursue their challenge.
The press conferences generally start with an opening statement from the Prime Minister or
the Foreign Minister. Although turn-taking between speaker and interpreter should usually
be flexible and negotiable during interaction, the alternation between the minister and the
interpreter in the study is dominated by the minister. The interpreter appears to take a turn
only when the minister gives her the turn. The hint to grant the turn to the interpreter is
often not very distinct. Long pauses can be an indicator for turn-shifting but they may also
be utilized by the Prime Minister as thinking time. Interpreters appear not to demand the
floor from the minister even in circumstances where the minister has a very lengthy turn.
According to Sun (2008), turn taking relies on the rapport developed between the minister
and the interpreter. The interpreter who works for the minister at the press conferences may
have worked for the minister for some time and already have an idea of what constitutes a
turn-shifting indicator. The Prime Minister and Foreign Minister show different lengths of
88
turns. The latter appears to take shorter turns before he gives the interpreter a turn. Among
the primary participants, the interpreter seems to have least power in turn-taking.
3.2.3.4 Visibility
In the televising of the IPC, a rule of minimizing the interpreter’s physical
visibility/prominence is observed. From the video data, it appears that the camera focuses
on the person who has the floor such as the prime minister, the journalists and the
chairperson but it gives very little exposure to the interpreter, even when she is speaking.
Most of the time when the interpreter has the floor, the camera seems to roam around
showing all the other participants but the interpreter. Moreover, the name plate of the
participants sitting at the table with the prime minister provides more evidence of the rather
different treatment that the interpreter receives from that given to the other participants.
Each name plate shows the corresponding participant’s name except the name plate for the
interpreter. There is no name identified on the plate for the interpreter and it reads as 翻译
(translator/interpreter). This illustrates that it is regarded as more appropriate for the
interpreters to be identified as a profession rather than as individuals. This again suggests
limited personal agency. What is interesting to point out is that when the televised press
conference first started in 1998, the interpreter’s name was identified on her name plate.
The first interpreter, by name Zhu Tong, who worked for the first televised press
conference immediately attracted huge national attention and has become very well-known
despite the fact that she has declined to give any interview or media exposure. Since then
the identity of the interpreters seems to be treated differently or less visibly. It appears that
the institution has taken action to control the visibility of the interpreter. Such intentional
minimizing of the interpreter’s visibility during the press conference indicates how the
institution prefers the interpreter to be portrayed at this event. How the interpreters’ roles
are portrayed and their visibility/invisibility is closely linked to the maxims (faithfulness,
accuracy and completeness) that the interpreters of our study have been instructed to follow.
From interviews with the government interpreters, more evidence is found regarding the
interpreter’s prescribed role as seen by the institution. The interpreters are instructed to stay
out of the camera exposure as much as possible when senior government officials are
89
meeting each other (Qian 2008). This seems to explain why the interpreter’s exposure on
TV is minimal. The concept of faithfulness in this community of practice seems to be
closely linked with invisibility since it indicates that the interpreter is not in a position to
make judgments regarding the wording or register or even intended meaning of the
speaker’s utterance. It is a strict rule that the interpreters should not clarify or explain the
speaker’s utterances (Sun 2008; Li, 2008). This rule however seems to be contradicted by
evidence in the data (see Chapter 5.)
3.3 Interactional Goals and Sociality Rights
More insights can be gained if we examine the primary participants’ interactional goals and
sociality rights based on Spencer-Oatey’s rapport management (the theory is reviewed in
Chapter 2) A description of interactional goals and sociality rights before the analysis can
provide some useful context and background information to assist the analysis. It is
important to note that interactional goals include more dimensions than Skopos, therefore,
the concept of Skopos is taken forward under interactional goals.
3.3.1 The journalists
The interactional goals for the journalists can be seen as questioning or challenging
government policy and conduct. Eliciting new information and requesting explanation or
disambiguation from the government are also valid goals but their essential goal is to ask
questions that are interesting for their regular readers and even draw attention from nonregular readers. Other considerations involved in their goals include finding an effective
questioning method to get the response they desire and asking questions from a fresh angle.
Their perceived sociality rights include the entitlement to have an equal opportunity to ask
questions as other journalists’ do, the right to ask only one question without undue
interruption and the right to be respected as a professional journalist whose job is to
monitor and question the government’s policy. An important entitlement for the journalist
is to be given a direct answer to his/her question, however, this entitlement may conflict
with other participants’ interactional goals. Mention is made at the IPC of the agency for
which the journalist works. This shows that the affiliation confers official status on the
90
questioner. Meanwhile, the journalists nearly always show explicit respect and recognition
of the minister’s status.
3.3.2 The Minister
Trying to justify and promote the government policy and conduct, responding effectively to
public criticism, re-stating China’s positions/policies on important issues with an
international interest, winning support or understanding from the public, trying to build and
enhance a positive and responsible image for himself and his government, clarifying
possible misinterpretation of government policy or conduct and exerting influence over the
public’s opinion are all possible interactional goals for the Prime Minister. Given his power
and status, he enjoys the right to receive questions in a respectful manner and to be able to
answer the question without undue interruption. Protecting the face of himself/the
government can be regarded as an entitlement due to his position. The minister can speak
on behalf of 1. Self; 2. Government; 3. China. His addressees can include 1. Questioner; 2.
The immediate audience (i.e. all those present audience); 3. Outer/mass audience (i.e. TV
audience); 4. The world; Given that the minister can speak on behalf of multi-groups and
his addressee can be a multi-audience, such multiplicity may affect the minister’s speech
features and his footing.
3.3.3. The Interpreter
As noted above, relaying faithfully, accurately and completely seems to be the most
important goal for the interpreters (Zhao 2007, Qian 2008, Sun 2008, Li 2008). They also
aim to effectively facilitate the communication, using politically correct glossaries and
relaying the words in an appropriate register and style. Failure to do this would lead to the
loss of face and status. They are invisible but still very high-profile. The sociality rights for
the interpreter include a working environment that allows the interpreters to work
effectively without undue interference and good audio effect or the right to be put in a
location which allows the best possible audio quality, the right to respect and fair treatment
from other participants and the right to have access to all the available preparation materials.
Such practice may not be applicable for these interpreters who work for the government
91
since the relationship between them and the government is not a client relationship. As
indicated earlier, they are the government’s civil servants. Being civil servants, presenting
an image as a competent and loyal employee is also a valid sociality right for the
interpreters. Sociality rights also include the notion of professionalism because they expect
to be treated as experts.
3.4 Specific Methodological Approaches
In order to analyze the data a number of procedures have to be followed given the fact that
the data are in no way designed for research purposes. The data are in the form of either
audio tapes or video discs, therefore, transcription is a necessary procedure. The set of
transcription conventions are adapted from Wadensjö (1998). There are rough transcripts
for IPC2 and IPC3 (Huang and Shen 2003) and they serve as a rough guide in the pilot
study of the research but detailed transcription of the parts used in the analysis is made by
the author for this thesis (see Appendix A). The speech features are transcribed as
appropriate since not all features are relevant to the study. Transcription can be useful to
examine linguistic features of the speech event in depth but its shortcoming is that it can not
provide non-linguistic features. However, non-linguistic features are not the concern of the
present study.
Transcription Conventions
[
]
,
.
?
…
e::
(.)
/
(xxx)
italics
Simultaneous or overlapping talk
Continuing intonation (rising or level tone)
Terminating intonation
Questioning intonation
Open-ended intonation (fading or ambiguous tone)
Long or lengthened vowel sound
Short pause
Abandoned utterance or repair
Inaudible
Verbatim English translation of Chinese utterances and
verbatim English back-translation of Chinese interpretation of
English utterances
92
In the analysis of the examples, these conventions are followed to the extent required by the
analysis. In addition, the transcription seeks to represent the actual utterances of the
interaction instead of what is grammatically correct in written texts.
In addition, glosses, in the form of very literal translations, are provided for analytical
purposes. The glosses are in italics and the underlined parts suggest that these are the focus
of the analysis in a particular example. The glosses are not intended to be idiomatic
translations of the source text. They aim to be as close a representation as possible of what
is being said or not said in the source text. Take the example of ‘您好/Nin Hao’. An
idiomatic translation should be ‘Good morning,’ but this will not suit the purpose of the
analysis because ‘您好/Nin Hao’ includes a honorific second person reference and an
idiomatic translation is not going to reflect the use of personal reference and the honorific
dimension in the source text, therefore, it is translated as ‘Good day to you (H)’ in the gloss.
请问/qingwen is translated as ‘Please (May I) ask’ in the gloss and the ‘()’is used to
indicate that words are added to complete the sense.
3.4.1. Shifts
The analysis sections of the study identify shifts between the source text and the target text.
However, not all shifts are relevant or revealing. There are obligatory shifts that any
competent translator will introduce automatically (Mason 2003: 180) There are four kinds
of shifts (Klaudy 2001) in explicitation including obligatory (due to linguistic differences
of two languages), optional (correct but unnatural in the target language), pragmatic (notes
added by translators), and translation-inherent shifts. The problem with this categorization
is that it is overlapping. In this thesis, we use the three categories of shifts introduced by
Calzada Perez (1997:130). The distinction is based on whether the translator is obligated to
make the shifts or it is the decision of the translator to make them.
(a) Obligatory shifts: The translator has no choice but to shift, mainly for grammatical or
semantic constraints imposed by the source and target language systems. If the
translator does not make shifts, the translation will be incorrect grammatically or
otherwise unacceptable.
(b) Preferential shifts: The translator has the choice not to make shifts but is constrained
93
by the norm in the target language. If the translator does not make shifts, the translation
will still be correct but will be marked (thus generating additional effects not found in
the ST) or be clumsy or unnatural.
(c) Optional shifts: The translator has the choice to make shifts or not in order to relay
intended effects — for example, for the purpose of translations or target readers.
When the shifts are examined in the study, obligatory shifts are not the focus. Given that we
are seeking to explore possible factors regulating the interpreters’ performances, our focus
will be on optional shifts and preferential shifts because obligatory shifts will not help us
gain insights into the interpreters’ decision-making behaviour.
3.4.2．Participation Frameworks
During the interaction, the alignments shift when there is an alternation in the participation
frameworks. In order to track the possible correlation between the audience design and the
interpreter’s performance, the analysis in Chapters 4, 5 will be divided according to the
three sets of participation frameworks occurring during the interaction. Therefore, a review
of the three sets of participation frameworks outlined in Chapter 1 is provided as six tables
(Table 3.3- Table 3.8).
Speaker
Chinese-speaking journalist
Addressee
the minister;
Auditors
the interpreter and other correspondents and officials sitting
with the minister;
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference and the TV audience (outer/mass audience);
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
Table 3.3 PF1: When questions are asked in Chinese
Speaker
English-speaking journalist
Addressee
the minister
Auditors
the interpreter and other journalists and officials sitting with the
94
minister;
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference and the TV audience (outer/mass audience);
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
Table 3.4 PF2: When questions are asked in English
It should be pointed out that in PF2 the minister is only addressee in name but due to the
language barrier, he may rely more on the Chinese interpretation.
Speaker
the minister;
Addressee
the journalist who asks the question;
Auditors
the interpreter, other government officials sitting with the
speaker and the rest of the correspondents
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference; TV audience (outer/mass audience).
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
Table 3.5 PF3: When the replies are provided
Three additional frameworks are provided with the interpreter as the speaker/mediator.
These frameworks are referred to as PF1a, PF2b, PF3c. and they correspond to the PF1,
PF2 and PF3.
Speaker
the interpreter;
Addressee
the minister;
Auditors
other correspondents and officials sitting with the minister;
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference and the TV audience (outer/mass audience);
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
Table 3.6 PF1a : When questions are interpreted from Chinese into English
In PF1a, it should be noted that since the minister is Chinese the auditors are actually the
indirect addressees. These indirect addressees are the people who actually rely on the
interpretation.
95
Speaker
Interpreter;
Addressee
the minister
Auditors
other correspondents and officials sitting with the minister;
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference; TV audience (outer/mass audience);
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
Table 3.7 PF2b: When questions are interpreted from English into Chinese
It should be noted that if we compare this table with PF2 where the minister is the
addressee only in name due to language barrier, he is actually an auditor. In PF2, however,
the minister is both the addressee in name and in reality.
Speaker/Mediator
Interpreter
Addressee
the correspondent who asks the question;
Auditors
The minister, other correspondents and officials sitting with the
minister;
Overhearers
all other Chinese-speaking people in the conference, such as
supporting staff of the press conference; TV audience
(outer/mass audience).
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
Table 3.8 PF3c: When the replies are interpreted from Chinese into English
It needs to be noted that in PF3c, if the journalist who asks the question is Chinesespeaking, then the auditors, particularly English-speaking ones, become indirect addressees
who rely on the interpretation.
The above six tables have shown that the participants, including overhearers and
eavesdroppers in PF1, PF2 and PF3, are identical with PF1a, PF2b and PF3c. By
comparing the six tables, it is noted that there is a variation in the audience design.
Particularly, there is constant variation in who are the auditors/indirect addressees (in this
thesis, the indirect addressee and auditors are very similar) and who the addressee is. Such
96
variation may, in theory, be a very significant influence on the interpreter’s behaviour.
Since all other variables are held constant, if there are systematic differences in interpreters’
behaviour (via examining the interactive parameters) from one framework to another, then
such different behaviour can constitute evidence of audience design.
On the basis of the methods described in this chapter, we will carry out the analysis in
Chapter 4, 5. Chapter 4 will focus on Face Management with qualitative analysis and
quantitative evidence as well as larger sequences wherever possible for the parameters.
Chapter 5 will focus on Information Management (with qualitative analysis and
quantitative evidence wherever possible for the parameters).
97
CHAPTER FOUR FACE MANAGEMENT
Face management and information management are important concepts in the study. They
are both about communication, while the first concerns the interpersonal dimensions of the
communication process and the second concerns the information dimensions of the process.
This is similar to what Brown and Yule (1983) suggest i.e. there are two functions of
language: the transactional function (to convey information) and the interactional function
(to maintain social relations). This is why we now analyse the data from the perspective of
face management (Chapter 4) and information management (Chapter 5).
In relation to Aims of the research, Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 seek to investigate the
evidence of speaker and audience interaction and investigate the potential influence of
audience design on the performance of interpreters in the corpus. Both quantitative and
qualitative analysis is provided. Where textual features are countable, tables and figures are
presented. In the case of other aspects like interactive strategies, which are not countable,
qualitative analysis is provided. The analysis is organized according to three sets of
participation frameworks (abbreviated as PF1, PF2, PF3) plus three corresponding sets of
participation frameworks for interpreters’ utterances (PF1a, PF2b, PF3c) to find out if a
shift in participation framework leads to any change in interpreter’s behaviour. If there is
no patterned difference in ST and TT in PF1, PF2, PF3 and PF1a, PF2b, PF3c, then
audience design cannot be claimed to be a governing factor of interpreter’s behaviour. If,
however, the evidence shows that the interpreter’s behaviour differs systematically in
different participation frameworks, this would suggest that audience design is involved
because all other variables are held constant: only the interpreter’s audience changes.
This chapter deals with findings relating to face management strategies. We look at
interpreting shifts of selected interactive parameters: address terms and deference, pronoun
choice, indirectness and conventional indirectness.
4.1. Participation Framework 1 and PF1a (Chinese questions)
In this section, we will examine the parameters under PF1 and PF1a. These frameworks are
reproduced here from Chapter 3 for convenience of reference:
98
Speaker
Chinese-speaking journalist;
Addressee
the minister;
Auditors
the interpreter and other correspondents and officials sitting
with the minister;
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference and the TV audience (outer/mass audience);
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
Table 4.1 PF1: When questions are asked in Chinese
Speaker
The interpreter;
Addressee
the minister;
Auditors
other correspondents and officials sitting with the minister;
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference and the TV audience (outer/mass audience);
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
Table 4.2 PF1a : When questions are interpreted from Chinese into English
In PF1a, it should be noted that since the addressee is Chinese, he (just like all the Chinese
speaking auditors and overhearers) does not require the interpretation while the English
speaking participants (auditors and overhearers) are the group who actually rely on the
interpretation. This point is crucial to an understanding of the analysis in this chapter and
the next.
4.1.1. Terms of Address and Deference
Interaction bears its own features in different situational contexts. In this thesis, the
interpreting mode is dialogue interpreting and, as Wadensjö (1998: 105) points out, turntaking coordination is involved in such interaction – see Chapter 2 (2.1.1). Terms of
address can be used as a turn-taking device and, therefore, we are going to include
examination of terms of address in the analysis. In PF1 what stands out is the frequent use
of deferent terms of address. The journalists usually start their turn with deferent terms of
address which can serve the purpose of identifying the addressee, attracting attention from
99
the addressee and marking deference. Such devices are mostly absent in the TT (English).
Table 4.3 illustrates the number of occurrences of shifts in the deference level of the
address terms. The most commonly used deferent address terms in the ST include
‘总理/zongli’(Prime
Minister)，’温总理/wen
zongli’(Wen
Prime
Minister),
‘李外长/li
waizhang’(Li Foreign Minister). The following statistics illustrate the translation shifts in
address terms and deference.
Occurrence of deferent
Journalists (in Chinese)
Interpreter (in English)
Chinese questions
Interpretation
39
7
terms of address
Total
Table 4.3: Deferent address terms in Chinese questions
Table 4.3 shows the general trend of the use of deferent address terms by the journalists and
the interpreters. It appears that the Chinese-speaking journalists tend to use deferent terms
of address very often while the interpreters’ interactive strategy seems to exclude such
markers of deference and markers of interactivity in their relay in most cases. Noting the
fact that deferent terms of address are used by the journalist at the turn-initial and at
embedded positions in the utterance, Table 4.4 and Table 4.5 attempt to find out if there is a
correlation between the location of terms of address and the interactive strategy that the
interpreter adopts. The distribution of the shifts may shed more insight into the possible
sub-trend of such shifts.
Occurrence of turn-initial
Journalists (in Chinese)
Interpreter (in English)
Chinese questions
Interpretation
18
6
deferent address terms
Total
Table 4.4: Turn-initial deferent address terms in Chinese questions
100
Occurrence of embedded
Journalists (in Chinese)
Interpreter (in English)
Chinese questions
Interpretation
21
1
deferent address terms
Total
Table 4.5: Embedded deferent address terms in Chinese questions
Tables 4.4 and 4.5 reveal that there is a slightly higher occurrence of embedded address
terms as compared to the turn-initial ones in the ST. The translation shifts show that the
interpreters seem to have an opposite interactive strategy. They tend to leave out most of
the embedded address terms while they have relayed a few of the turn-initial address terms.
When address terms are used in the middle of the utterance, it can serve the purpose of
drawing the attention of the intended addressee or identifying who the speaker is addressing.
It is also used as a device to emphasize the forthcoming utterance. Since there is no need to
identify who the speaker is addressing, the embedded address terms are used more to
highlight the important part of the utterance. For example, John as a teacher is talking to
Mary as a student. In the middle of his talk if he says ‘Mary, you really need to hand in
your homework before the end of the week’, it shows that he is putting an emphasis on the
utterance which follows the address term ‘Mary’. In such circumstances, the speaker is
interacting with the addressee and is trying to implicitly communicate the hint of important
content. The address terms function both as a marker of deference and interactivity. With
the omission of such markers, the TT appears to have a decreased level of deference and
interactivity. In addition, the decrease in the occurrence of terms of address has the effect of
depersonalization, distancing and detachment on the part of the interpreter. It seems that the
interpreter is taking a more distant position toward the questions that she is interpreting.
This contrasts with the tendency of solidarity when she interprets for the minister (see
under PF3/PF3c). Examples are provided for examination.
1. J. 总理您好！我是新华社记者………
Prime Minister, Good day to you (H).. I am xinhua agency journalist…
I. I am representing Xinhua News Agency…… (Q.1)
101
2. J. 总理，去年您曾经讲过，宏观调控对………
Prime Minister, last year you (H) once spoke, macro regulation control…
I. Last year you said macro-regulation……. (Q.1)
3. J. 我想请问总理的是您对去年的…….？
I wish Please (May I) ask Prime Minister is you (H) with regard to last year’s……?
I. Could you comment on last year’s work with regard to macro……? (Q.1)
4. J. ….应该有什么样的期待？ 谢谢总理！
……should have what kind of expectation? Thanks prime minister….
I. What expectations do you think investors can have on the stock …..? (Q.6)
5. J. 谢谢部长。我是香港星岛日报的记者…..
Thank you, minister. I am Hong Kong Xing Dao Daily Correspondent…..
I. I’m with Xingdao Daily from Hong Kong…. (Q.14)
6. J. 那么，这个温总理你怎么看待这些情况？…..
Then, this Wen Prime Minster you how see these situation?.....
I. What’s your comment on such a situation?....... (Q.18)
7. J. 刚才部长阁下也说了，越交朋友越好…..
Just now Minister Excellency also said, more make friend more better….
I. …just now you commented the more China’s friends are the better… (Q.19)
All the deferent terms of address shown above are used in questions to the minister. The
examples illustrate both turn-initial (1-2) and embedded deferent terms of address (3-7).
These examples display the general trend of the interpreter’s strategy, omission. Imposing
questions on addressees is inherently face-threatening. Adding deference devices or
increasing the deference level can be viewed as a means to redress the FTA and mitigate
the imposition on the addressee’s negative face wants. The indication of the official
102
position of the addressee (e.g. Prime Minister or Foreign Minister) in the address terms is a
marker for deference displayed by the speaker. Despite their location, these deferent
markers all seem to mitigate the imposition and redress the addressee’s face wants. Due to
reasons of space not all of the occurrences will be presented here. The comparative table
(Table 4.3) provided above illustrates the frequency of the shift in terms of address in the
19 Chinese questions in the corpus. What may account for this trend is that the interpreter is
not really addressing the minister. Her primary recipients are English-speaking auditors.
As can be observed from the Table 4.3, there are 7 instances where the interpreter relays the
deferent terms of address. Three of these counter-examples are provided below for
illustration:
8. J. 感谢总理在百忙之中登录…..
thank Prime Minister in hundred busy middle log on……
I. I would like to thank you, Mr. Premier e:: for taking time out of……(Q1)
9. J. 尊敬的温总理，您好！您辛苦了….
Respected Wen Primer, good day to you (H).
I. Respected Prime Minister Wen, we commend your hard work……(Q.5)
10. J. 温总你好，我是姓郑…..
Wen Primier, good day to you, I am surname Zheng….
I. Good morning, Premier…..(Q.16)
It is observed in the above examples that the interpreter has relayed the deferent terms of
address. This contrasts with the major trend of omission. Actually, 4 of these seven
instances involve questions raised by 4 Chinese-speaking journalists representing foreign
media and 3 out of 4 turn-initial deferent address terms are relayed by the interpreter. It
appears that within the major trend of a reduced level of deference, there is a minor trend of
treating initial greetings from Chinese media and foreign media slightly differently.
However, the corpus does not provide statistically significant evidence to confirm the
opposing trend.
103
4.1.1.1 Non-vocative use of deferent terms of address
It is also worthy of note that in the data not all 总理/zongli (Prime Minister) or
外长/waizhang (Foreign Minister) are treated as direct address terms since there are cases
where they are actually used as third person reference. Such examples can be found in Q18
and Q19 and are provided below:
11. J. 刚刚这个俄罗斯记者提到这个这个回答的时候总理回答这个现在历史上中
俄关系是最好的时候…..
Just now this Russian reporter mentioned this this answer’s time Prime Minister
answer this now in history China Russia relationship is best’s time ……
I. When you answered the question asked by the (.) Russian reporter you described
the relationship between China and Russia as better than ever in history but
talking about relations between China and Japan.…..(Q.18)
12. J. 刚才部长阁下21也说了….
Just now Minister Excellency also said….
I. just now you commented……. (Q19)
From the above two examples, it can be observed that the deferent terms of address are
actually used as third person reference. When non-vocative terms of address are used, it
may serve the purpose of showing respect but it is also an interaction tactic to show the
addressee that the speaker has paid attention to what the addressee has said (attend to the
positive face wants) and can be seen as an attempt by the questioner to claim an in-group
identity (Brown and Levinson 1987:102).
As it appears, in Chinese questions deference is always applied whether it is a vocative use
of address terms or non-vocative address terms. The interpreters simply use ‘you’ in
English for these non-vocative address terms. The deference level is compromised with
such shift.
21In
部长阁下(Minister Excellency), 阁下(Excellency) here functions as a title just like Mr.
104
The previous examples do not provide much context and there is only one occurrence of the
deferent terms of address in each example. Therefore, a larger sequence is now provided
where more than one term of address are used for analysis.
13. J. 总理您好！我是新华社记者，也是新华网的记者。首先请允许我代表全体
新华社记者，l 感谢总理在百忙之中登录我们的新华网。总理，去年您曾
经讲过,宏观调控对政府是一个新的重大考验，这个考验不亚于 SARS 的考
验。
Prime Minister, good day to you (H).. I am xinhua agency journalist, also am
xinhua net’s journalist. First please allow me on behalf of whole xinhua agency
journalist, thank Prime Minister in hundred busy middle log on our xinhua net.
Prime Minister, last year you (H) once spoke, macro regulation control with
regard to government is one very new major test, this test no less than SARS’
test.
I. I am representing Xinhua News Agency as well as Xinhua Net. On behalf of all
the employees of Xinhua News Agency, I would like to thank you, Mr. Premier e::
for taking time out of your busy schedule to log on to the xinhuanet.com Last year
you said (.) macro-regulation was a new and severe task for the government, it
was no easier a task than fighting against SARS. (Q1)
This example includes both turn-initial and embedded terms of address. The first
occurrence happens when the journalist addresses the minister within the greeting sequence.
In this instance, there is no need for the speaker to use address terms to ensure his recipient.
The use of address terms appears to be a way for the journalist to show deference to the
minister. An address term is also used in the middle of a turn. This seems to be shiftimplicative. It marks the end of the pre-statement which is a routine complimentary
greeting and the second term of address introduces a new topic which is the question that
the journalist wants to ask. When the journalist inserts address terms in the middle of
his/her turn, it seems to indicate that the next part of talk is important or a new topic is
being introduced. By marking the sequence with address terms the journalist can help direct
the addressee/minister’s attention to the important part of the interaction. This may help the
journalist achieve their interaction goals of obtaining a specific response from the minister.
It seems that in the Chinese questions the use of terms of address represents etiquette of
deference and an indication of shift in the interaction (e.g. introduction of new topics).
105
In contrast, the minister does not often preface his replies with greeting sequences (see 4.3
PF3 and PF3c). The minister never uses any journalist’s name as a term of address. The
minister appears to project the impersonal institutionality of the interaction. It seems that
the minister is speaking to a broad audience instead of a specific journalist. There are only
very rare cases when the minister uses direct terms of address during his replies. The
examples are provided and discussed in 4.3 PF 3.
In the corpus, although the interaction has multi-party involvement, it is essentially a
dyadic interaction when the journalist is given the floor to ask the question and when the
minister takes the floor to respond to the questions. Terms of address are considered
redundant in dyadic interaction in terms of recipiency (Rendle-Short 2007). Use of address
terms therefore represents the marked case and is shift-implicative (i.e. change of turn). In
the press conference, the function of terms of address cannot be used to compete for the
turn (c.f. Rendle-Short 2007) given that the TCU (turn constructional unit) and TRP (turn
relevant position) are more carefully observed and the understanding of TCU and TRP
appears to be shared by all participants. Therefore, the terms of address used by the
journalists are motivated more by deference, the introduction of new topics or to mark the
introduction of the question after the pre-statement.
4.1.2 Summary
The decrease in the number of honorific terms of address may lead to a reduced deference
level in interpretation. Direct address such as ‘Prime Minister’ shows not only deference
but also indicates high interactivity. These deferent terms of address do not only mark the
level of deference but also function as vocatives to draw the addressee’s attention. Using
vocatives to call upon the addressee’s attention can be seen as a very distinctive feature of
high interactivity in face-to-face encounters. In TT the deference and interactivity level
appear to be reduced by the shift in the use of terms of address. It is important to point out
the shift is not an obligatory shift. There are no linguistic constraints which make it
impossible to interpret such address terms. The shift is optional and the interpreters choose
to omit many of the address terms. It may be that the interpreters consider the rendition of
106
these address terms is not important for their primary recipients, those who rely on their
interpretation but who are not the addressee. If this is the case, the interpreters seem to be
making adjustments according to different expectations. As suggested by Bell, deference is
‘an audience-directed behaviour’ (1984:156). Such a strategy as adopted by the interpreter
would appear to reflect the involvement of audience design.
4.1.3 Other Aspects of deference
We have looked at deference through the use of terms of address. What needs to be pointed
out is that section 4.1.1 above focuses only on terms of address while in the section below
(openings and closings of questions), although address terms are often involved, there are
other markers which serve deference functions and they deserve some discussion as a
separate category. In this part, other shifts in deference are discussed. In our data, consistent
deferent routines are observed in the openings and closings of the Chinese questions.
4.1.3.1 Deference in Openings and Closings of Chinese Questions
It appears that there is a difference between the deference level in the ST and the TT in the
openings and closings of questions. Tables 4.6-4.8 illustrate the deference patterns in this
respect.
IPC1
ST
TT
9 (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, Q5,
4 (Q2, Q5, Q16,Q17)
Q6, Q16,Q17,Q18)
IPC2
IPC3
6 (Q7, Q8, Q9, Q10,Q12,
1 (Q10 partial
Q13)
interpretation)
3 (Q14,Q15, Q19)
1 (Q14)
Table 4.6: markers of deference in the openings of the questions in Chinese
107
IPC1
ST
TT
7 (Q2, Q3, Q4, Q5, Q6,
0
Q17, Q18)
IPC2
7 (Q7, Q8, Q9,Q10,Q11,
2 (Q7,Q8)
Q12, Q13)
IPC3
2 (Q14, Q19)
0
Table 4.7: markers of deference in the closings of the questions in Chinese
Total
ST
TT
34
8
Table 4.8: total occurrences of deference in the openings and closings of questions in
Chinese
From Table 4.6-4.8, it is observed that there is a strong tendency to show deference at
openings and closings of questions. There are 34 deference markers in ST while there are
only 8 occurrences in TT.
14. J. 温总理您好，台湾年代电视台记者公能慧。 …. 谢谢以上是我的问题。
Wen Prime Mnister, good day to you (H). Taiwan Era TV station journalist Gong
Neng Hui…. thanks, the above is my question.
I. ….......(translation by omission) (Q3)
15. J. 总理您好！我是香港民报的施加文。我的问题是…. 谢谢！
Prime Minister, good day to you (H), I am Hong Kong Minbao’s Shi Jiawen. My
question is….Thank you.
I. From Mingbao Hong Kong…… (Q4.)
16. J. 温总理您好！我是新加坡联合早报驻北京的记者…谢谢！
Wen Prime Minister, good day to you (H). I am Singapore Lianhezaobao residing
in Beijing correspondent.....Thanks!
I. I am with the Lianhezhaobao of Singapore..... (Q9)
108
Deference formulas in openings and closings of Chinese Questions consist of terms of
address+ deferent greetings + gratitude expression, as can be observed from the above
examples. Tables 4.6-4.8 show that there is a major trend of omitting the deferent devices
in interpretation. Showing deference may have the effect of increased distance. It appears
that interpreters are reducing the deference level when they are translating from Chinese
into English (c.f. PF2). When the interpreters are interpreting these Chinese questions into
English, it is important to keep in mind that the minister does not need the English
interpretation. English speaking auditors and overhearers, on the other hand, rely on the
English interpretation. When the interpreter is addressing the minister, the appropriate
formality is a priority due to the power hierarchy. In contrast, when the audience who
actually need to hear the interpretation are correspondents and other supportive staff,
formality markers like deferent openings and closings appear not to be a priority. The
content of the question seems to be more relevant. The interpreters thus appear to take into
consideration who are the people listening to their interpretation. This may also be an
indication of audience design.
Despite the major trend illustrated above, there are examples showing an opposing trend as
can be seen in 17 and 18.
17. J. 总理您好！我是中央电视台的记者….. 谢谢您。
Prime Minister, good day to you (H)…. Thank you (H).
I. CCTV (.), good morning, Mr. Premier…. (Q2)
18. J. …您又是怎么处理的？谢谢！
….. You (H) also how handle? Thanks!
I. …. and how did you handle them? Thank you. (Q8)
There is not an obvious reason for this opposing trend. However, it is only a minor trend.
The major trend is a consistent shift that leads to reduced deference.
109
4.1.4 Pronoun choice
Pronoun choice reflects the relationship between the interlocutors and between the
interlocutors and their utterances. Pronoun choice (just like address terms) is a very useful
parameter for investigating interaction between speaker and audience. How the speakers
use pronouns can provide evidence for their intended interactive strategies and reflect their
positioning toward other participants. Similarly, shifts in the interpretation of pronouns will
have an effect on the interaction and reflect how the interpreters position themselves toward
the speech event. The study of pronoun choice in this research includes both the personal
pronouns and possessive pronouns and adjectives. Table 4.9 shows a comparison of the
total occurrence of first person reference.
First Person Pronoun
Chinese questions
English rendition
Total
55
45
Table 4.9. Total Occurrence of First Person Pronoun in ST and TT
It is observed from Table 4.9 that there is a lower frequency of first person reference in TT.
Examples 19 - 23 illustrate this translation shift.
19. J. 我是新华社记者，也是新华网的记者。首先请允许我代表全体新华社记
者，感谢总理在百忙之中登录我们的新华网…现在一年多过去了，我想请问总理的是您对…？
I am xinhua agency journalist, also am xinhua net’s journalist. First please allow
me on behalf of whole xinhua agency journalist, thank Prime Minister in hundred
busy middle log on our xinhua net… Now one year more passed, I wish please
(May I) ask Prime Minister is you with regard…?
I. I am representing Xinhua News Agency as well as Xinhua Net. On behalf of all
the employees of Xinhua News Agency, I would like to thank you, Mr. Premier for
taking time out of your busy schedule to log on to the xinhuanet.com….Could you
comment on…. (Q1)
110
In this example, we would examine the shift of the person reference ‘our’ into a definite
article ‘the’. With the use of ‘our22’, the speaker could be claiming common ground with
the addressee. It could be positive politeness strategy. A definite article is used to denote
the specified thing that the speaker is referring to. ‘Our’ indicates the relationship between
the speaker and other participants but ‘the’ does not contain such indication. This shift has
the effect of distance and detachment between the speaker and other participants. The
claiming common ground effect intended by the speaker is lost.
20.J.就是刚刚结束的人大会议当中,我知道以非常高的票数通过了反分裂国家法…不过我个人比较关注的部
分是在于这里面有相当重要的篇章是强调未来两岸持续交流的部分。不晓得国务院各机关在这部法律的架构
之下，将要如何提出具体的措施，来进一步促进两岸的一个持续交流。另外，我们知道在大陆各个城市有很
多很多的台商在这里做生意…谢谢以上是我的问题。
that is just concluded People’s Congress among...I know with very high vote passed
anti-secession law... but I personal rather pay attention part is this inside
considerable import text is stress future two strait continue exchange part. Not sure
state council various organ in this law’s structure, will wish how raise specific
measure, to further step promote two strait’s one continued exchange,... in addition,
we know at mainland various city have many many Tai businessman in here doing
business... thanks, the above is my question.
I. …The just-concluded session of the National People’s Congress adopted the antisecession law by an overwhelming majority. The text of this new law has been a e::
subject of great interest to many people especially people are interested in a section in
this law which provides for continued exchanges between the two sides of the
Taiwan-straits. My questions are under this framework of the new law, what specific
measures will the State Council adopt to promote continued exchanges.
Moreover，there are many business people from Taiwan living in cities on the
mainland,…. (Q3)
This example is similar to the previous example. The omission of the first person reference
(‘I’ ) shows detachment of the interpreter from the utterance. The speaker uses the in-group
identity marker ‘we’ when he/she wants to present the forthcoming utterance as a widely
The ambiguity of ‘our’ should be recognized. ‘Our’ could mean Speaker+Hearer (that is Xinhua belongs to the Chinese
government/Minister) or it could mean Speaker+other employees of Xinhua.
22
111
recognized fact. The removal of first person references certainly adds distancing and
detachment to the utterance.
21. J. 自从去年国务院发布推进资本市场改革和发展的决定也就是我们说的国九条
以来...所以我们想请总理回答一个问题，我们政府会不会采取有力的措施改变
股市的现状。
Since last year state council issue promote capital market reform and development
decision that is we called state nine principle since,….so we wish please prime
minister answer one question, our government will not will adopt strong measure
change stock market current situation.
I. The State Council has issued a Nine-point guideline on reform, opening-up and
stable development of the equity market….Many investors have been trapped in the
stockmarket. Will the government take strong measures to reverse such a situation?
(Q6)
The above example is a good illustration of how speakers claim solidarity with addressees.
The speaker is constantly using ‘we/our’ when referring to the government policy, when he
is asking a question to the Prime Minister or when he is referring to the government. The
solidarity claimed by the speaker is lost when the omission is made by the interpreter.
22. J. 我是香港南华早报的记者。我的问题是：目前国有商业银行改革已经进实质阶段...
I am Hong Kong Nanhua morning newspaper’s journalist. My question is
currentlystate-owned commercial bank reform already enter concrete stage…
I. I am with South China Morning Post. At present the reform of the state-owned
commercial banks has entered into substantive stage… (Q13)
23. J. 我是香港星岛日报的记者…我想问部长对此有何评论？
I am Hong Kong Xing Dao Daily Correspondent…I want to ask minister
regarding this how commend?
I. I’m with Xingdao Daily from Hong Kong…what’s yours comments on
that? (Q14)
112
Examples 19-23 show a clear trend of using less first person reference in TT than in ST. By
relaying a FTA to the minister in the first person, the interpreter puts her own face at risk
too although she is merely relaying other people’s words. Such a translation shift reduces
personal involvement in the utterance and increases the distance between the speaker (i.e.
interpreter) and the utterance and between the speaker and other participants. This can
potentially protect the interpreter’s face by involving less personal claim in face-threatening
utterances and adopting a more neutral way of relaying the words. Professional survival is
regarded as the primary concern for interpreters (Setton: 1998:199; Monacelli 2005), the
desire to protect the interpreter’s own face can shed some light on the distancing position
that the interpreter appears to take in a face-threatening speech act.
Despite the trend of using less first person reference in the English interpretation of Chinese
questions, there are cases where there are some counter-tendencies. Some counter examples
are provided below.
24.J.我是新加坡联合早报驻北京的记者...我们也看到中国对原料的需求是很庞的…请问温总理…
I am Singapore Lianhezaobao residing in Beijing...we also see China for raw
material demand be very large… Please (May I) ask wen prime minister
I. I am with the Lianhezhaobao of Singapore.... China requires a lot of (.) raw
materials… So my question is…(Q9)
25.J.我是中央人民广播电台的记者。在我国经济取得举世公认的成就的同时...
请问总理…能不能告诉我们，在您的构想中，符合我们国情和广大老百姓利益的政治体制应该
是怎样的？
I am central people’s radio’s journalist. In my country economy achieved world
recognized achievement’s same time… Please (May I) ask Prime Minster… Can
or can not tell us, suitable for our country situation and broad people interest’s
political system should be how?
I. I am with China National Radio. While China scored impressive achievements in
economic development... And my question is... Could you describe to us your
vision (.) of a political system that is consistent with China’s conditions and the
interests of our people. (Q10)
113
26.J.我是中央电视台的记者…您所承担的压力是我们常人都难以体会到的。那个
时候您常说…您认为今年我们在发展中面临着最重要的问题是什么？
I am central TV station’s journalist… you (H) shouldered pressure is we ordinary
people all hard to feel… You (H) think this year we in development facing most
important is what?
I. I am with CCTV. The pressure you felt then as the new premier of China was
probably unimaginably intense to the people in the street. I remembered you often
said…So my question is, then what you see are the most outstanding problems we
will face in China’s development this year… (Q7)
From examples 24-26, we can see an opposing trend. There is no clear indication of the
reasons behind this minor trend.
4.1.4.1 Summary
It is known that ‘we’ and its variants (‘our’ and ‘us’) can be used to claim in-group
membership (Brown and Levinson 1987:107), to indicate speaker involvement (1987:110)
and as a linguistic means of expressiveness (Spencer-Oatey 2009:120) It appears that a
stronger sense of solidarity is created in ST than in the TT. As can be observed from the
figures above, it appears that with lower frequency of first person references, the interpreter
is adopting a more distancing and detached positioning towards the utterance. In
conjunction with the fact that the interpreter shows a strong tendency to omit the opening
greetings which are very interpersonal, this strengthens the tendency of detachment and
distancing (c.f. 2.1.5 and 3.2.3.2). As pointed out by Huang (1994:208), Chinese tends to
use fewer pronoun choices but our data seem to contradict this norm. In the Chinese
questions, there are more first person references being used than in the English
interpretation. This shows that the ST has a higher level of interactivity than the TT; and
that the shift leads to the effect of more detachment, distance and less interactivity.
114
4.1.5 Indirectness to Directness
In this section, a translation shift towards increased directness is examined. It is difficult to
identify one single linguistic feature to represent directness or indirectness, therefore,
countable parameters are not available for the investigation. However, some examples are
provided for qualitative analysis.
27 J. 不晓得国务院各机关在这部法律的架构之下，将要如何提出具体的措施，来
进一步促进两岸的一个持续交流？
Not sure state council various organ in this law’s structure, will wish how raise
specific measure, to further step promote two strait’s one continued exchange?
I. under this framework of the new law, what specific measures will the State Council
adopt to promote continued exchanges. (Q3)
28 J. 不晓得这个新的法律对于这些广大台商的权益是不是会造成任何影响；
not sure this new law with regard to these massive Tai businessman’s rights and
benefit is or is not will cause any influence
I. Will this law affect their interests?
(Q3)
Examples 27, 28 illustrate how the journalist uses the off-record strategy (Brown and
Levinson 1987) to ask the question. She tries to do the FTA in an indirect way by
decreasing the certainty of her statement 不晓得/(using ‘not sure’). Although she is asking
a question, the way she raises the question does not have the form of a question. The
journalist seems merely to be saying that she is not sure about certain things. It seems she
does not presuppose an answer and allows the minister flexibility in answering the question.
In the interpretation, all the indirect features are left out. The interpreter puts the question in
a very clear and direct way. As a result, the directness of the question is significantly
increased. The point seems to be relayed very effectively but all the efforts made by the
speaker to attend to the addressee’s face have been omitted. The effect is that the minister
hears the indirect version but English-speaking auditors get the direct version.
29 J. 我想问一个有关三农的问题，因为这也是您一直关注的问题。
I wish to ask one concerning three agriculture’s question because this also is you (H)
115
always pay attention’s question/problem.
I. My question is about er agriculture, rural area and farmers. (Q5)
In Example 29, the journalist uses a positive politeness strategy. She does the FTA on
record while redressing the hearer’s face concerns by showing awareness of the hearer’s
interests and face wants. With such a way of introducing the question, she may make it
seem less of an imposition since she tries to ask a question that the minister is interested in.
This redress is not relayed by the interpreter, who directly puts forward what the question is
about. By doing so, the question sounds much more direct in TT than in ST.
30. J. 因为我们人民日报每天都有涉及到三农问题的报道，有时间您可以上去看
看…
because we people’s daily everyday all have touched/mentioned three agriculture
problem’s report. Have time you (H) may…
I. Actually People’s Daily carries reports concerning agriculture, rural area and
farmers on a daily basis. If you have time you could… (Q5).
In Example 30, the journalist attends to the minister’s negative face wants by giving
reasons before she invites the minister to read her newspaper. It appears that the journalist
has a reason for imposing a possible action on the minister and it displays the speaker’s (the
journalist’s) want to not impinge on the hearer’s freedom of action.
In contrast, the
interpreter puts the statement as a fact instead of a reason. When it is presented as an
established fact it does not indicate the effort of the speaker to avoid intrusion on the
minister’s freedom. Therefore, the redressing effect to the minister’s negative face wants is
reduced. It makes the question/imposition more direct.
From these examples, evidence clearly shows that speakers (journalists) do make efforts to
make questions less direct by redressing the minister’s positive and negative face wants,
reducing the certainty in their claim and minimizing the imposition. It appears that making
requests more indirect is a primary concern for the speaker/journalist when they are
addressing the question to the minister. This is a cultural norm in Chinese society given the
traditional respect for age and authority. In contrast, evidence shows that most of the time
116
no such concern is being attended to by the interpreter when she is relaying the words. Her
interpretation puts the question in a straightforward manner and this makes her
interpretation more direct and more face-threatening. In comparing PF1 and PF1a, we can
see that the minister is the addressee in both PFs, but the difference is that in PF1 the
interpreter is actually working for the benefit of the auditors/indirect addressees (mainly
English speaking journalists and overhearers). When the journalist is addressing the
minister, the negotiation of face in the utterance is a primary concern. However, when the
interpreter is working for the benefit of some of the auditors, face concerns appear not be
the priority for the interpreter. Effectively communicating the question to these auditors
appears to be more important.
31. J. 虽然有关部门采取了很多有力的措施，但是市场反应比较冷淡，股价下跌得
比较厉害。
although relevant department adopted many strong measure, but market
response relatively cold, stock price fall rather significant.
I. the stock market has responded coldly and the prices of stocks continued
plummeting. (Q6)
This is an example of how hedging and presupposition influence directness. In 31, the
journalist seems to be very careful when he is trying to raise the question about the
problematic stock market. In his pre-statement to his question, he attends to the minister’s
positive face by acknowledging that the government has taken many strong measures to
help the stock market. The journalist appears to avoid giving the impression of blaming the
government for the problem. Even when he is describing the (not very satisfactory) effect
of the government’s measures, he still tries to mitigate the negative sense in his/her
wording by resorting to the use of hedges (relatively). It appears that the interpreter does
not seem to show such caution with words when she interprets. First the interpreter omits
the part where the journalist shows his recognition for the government efforts in solving the
problem. Then she leaves out the two hedges which can mitigate the negative level of his
words. Finally, regarding the stock price drop, the presupposition of the interpretation
(‘continued plummeting ’) achieves the effect of strengthening the negative sense of the
words instead of the mitigation. The word ‘continue’ is a case of lexical presupposition. It
117
is not stated that there is ‘plummeting’ in the sentence but it is presupposed that there is a
continuation of an already-existing situation, which is not indicated by the speaker. In the
ST, the stock price is described as ‘下跌/fall’. The word ‘plummeting’ means not just a fall
but a fall in a sudden and steep manner. The presupposition contained in the TT clashes
with the mitigation intended by the speaker.
It is observed from Example 31 that the journalist pays particular attention to face
negotiation by attending to the minister’s face wants. It appears that this attention to face
wants is neglected by the interpreter. She seems to just interpret what the question is instead
of how the question is asked. When the journalist is directly addressing the minister, both
‘what the question is’ and ‘how the question is asked’ are important, given the nature of the
press conference and the power hierarchy. When the interpreter is relaying for the benefit
of English-speaking auditors and overhearers, ‘what the question is’ appears to be more
important. This indicates that the interpreters seem to make adjustments to take account of
the audience who actually rely on their interpretation. Again, this is evidence of audience
design.
There are a few more similar examples.
32.J.请问一下总理，香港自从回归每当我们有经济困难的时候，中央都大力支持…
Please (May I) ask just Prime Minister, Hong Kong since return, every time when
we have economic difficulty time, central government all big strength support…
I. Since HK’s return to the motherland, each time Hong Kong encountered economic
difficulties the central government would extend vigorous support. (Q11)
In this example, a hedge (‘just’) is used to mitigate the imposition on the addressee.
‘请问//Please (May I) ask’ as a conventional indirectness device is also worth commenting
on but we will deal with it under 4.1.5 Conventional indirectness. The speaker has clearly
made the effort to redress the negative face wants of the minister but the TT does not reflect
such effort.
33. J. 首先请允许我代表全体新华社记者, 感谢…
First please allow me on behalf of whole xinhua agency journalist…thank
118
I. On behalf of all the employees of Xinhua News Agency, I would like to thank you,
(Q1)
Here the speaker asks permission from the minister to incur an imposition on his time and
attention. Although the permission does not actually need to be granted to proceed to the
coming remarks, the mere gesture of asking for permission shows respect for the
addressee’s want not to be imposed upon. It redresses the addressee’s negative face. As can
be observed from the example, the interpreter does not interpret these elements.
34. J. 在这里呢有一个问题要请教温总理，就是刚刚结束的人大会议当中...
In here ne23 I have one question wish consult Wen Prime Minister, that be just
concluded People’s Congress among…
I. The just-concluded session of the National People’s Congress…. (Q3)
In Example 34, the speaker/journalist tries to state what she is going to do (consult the
minister on a question) first before starting the question. This is a less direct way of asking
the question. By using the word ‘请教/consult’, it presupposes that the speaker positions
herself as someone with less knowledge and experience and positions the minister as
someone who is more knowledgeable, resourceful for solutions. This actually redresses the
positive face of the minister. Although the speaker/journalist is asking a question just like
other journalists do, she positions herself as inferior to the minister.
35. J. 所以我们想请总理回答一个问题，我们政府会不会采取有力的措施改变股市
的现状。
so we wish please prime minister answer one question, our government will not will
adopt strong measure change stock market current situation?
I. Will the government take strong measures to reverse such a situation? (Q6)
In 35, the speaker redresses the minister’s positive face by claiming common ground and
conveying that they are co-operators (‘our government’). As a co-operator the speaker
gives reasons before he asks the minister the question. In addition, the use of person
23
呢/ne is an auxiliary word used in the middle of the sentence to indicate a pause.
119
reference 我们/we is worth commenting on. By using ‘we’ instead of ‘I’, the speaker
reduces his/her personal responsibility for asking the question. He actually protects his/her
own face.
36. J. 作为刚刚上任的新一届政府的总理, 您所承担的压力是我们常人都难以体会到
的…..
As just started new term government’s prime minister, you (H) shouldered pressure
is we ordinary people all hard to feel....
I. The pressure you felt then as the new premier of China was probably unimaginably
intense to the people in the street.…. (Q7)
The context for this question is that not long after the Prime Minister took office, the SARS
epidemic broke out and the outbreak posed a huge challenge to the new leadership. The
speaker mentions the fact that the Prime Minister was ‘new’ in his job when this
tremendous challenge occurred. However, it seems that the speaker feels that it is not
enough to use only ‘new’. He uses ‘刚刚/just’ to emphasise the newness of the Prime
Minister and expresses sympathy for the addressee. This actually allows the speaker to
claim common ground with the minister. The extra effort (‘just’) is omitted by the
interpreter.
37. J. 您对三农问题的关注，比如说去年您为农民熊德明讨公道的事经新华社报
道后 ，掀起了追讨民工工资的高潮，但是全国并没有很多的人像熊德明
那样有这么好的 运气。所以我们说如果群众有了困难得不到解决…
you (H) regarding three agriculture issues’ concern, for example last year you
(H) for farmer Xiong Deming ask justice thing through Xinhua News Agency
report after, across nation invoke farmer worker ask for salary boom but
nationwide not many people like Xiong Deming such good luck. So we say if
people have difficulty can’t be resolved…
I. the e:: questions relating to agriculture, the rural areas and farmers and also last
year, you helped a particular farmer worker named Xiong Deming to get back her
wage arrears and this has led to (.) a real boom of getting back unpaid wages for
120
farmer workers throughout the country. but I have to say that many people are not
as lucky as Mrs. Xiong Deming. Sometimes they encounter problems and
grievances that they can not resolve by themselves… (Q8)
The choice of words used by the Chinese journalist illustrates some signs of indirectness
such as ‘ask justice’, ‘ask salary’ and ‘difficulty’. The interpreter seems to be very direct
and explicit in decoding these terms to the TT that ‘justice’ means ‘wage arrears’, ‘ask
salary’ is ‘getting back unpaid wages’ and ‘difficulty’ is ‘problems and grievances’. These
ST euphemisms are sufficient stimuli for the Chinese hearers who share the same cognitive
environment to derive the speaker’s intended cognitive effect. The interpreter’s explicit
terms have more negative connotations. ST ‘Justice’ sounds very vague and positive in tone
while TT ‘wage arrears’ sounds more trivial than ‘justice’ and it carries negative
connotations. In this context, ‘asking justice’ does not mean ‘justice’ in general but it has a
very specific association with ‘wage arrears’. The shift from indirectness to directness
naturally poses a threat to the minister’s positive face wants as a competent leader. The fact
that the interpreter does these FTAs shows that she is unlikely to regard the minister as her
primary receiver in this instance.
There are a few apparent counter-examples, in which ST directness becomes TT
indirectness. Example 38 is one such case.
38. J. 现在一年多过去了，我想请问总理的是您对去年的宏观调控有怎样的评价？
今年宏观调控有什么特点？力度会不会进一步加大？
Now one year more passed, I wish please (May I) ask Prime Minister be you (H)
with regard to last year’s macro regulation control have how comment? This
year macro regulation control have what feature? Strength will not will further
increase?
I. Now a year has passed. Could you comment on last year’s work with regard to
macro regulation? Could also speak of the new characteristics of the macro
regulatory for this year? Will you intensify these policy measures?
This example illustrates one of the journalist’s questioning tactics. The speaker uses
open questions such as ‘have how comment’ and ‘have what feature’ instead of
questions that can be answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Framing questions with ‘what’ or
121
‘how’ may help obtain specific information that the journalists are looking for. It is a
more direct way of requesting certain details. With such devices the speaker presumes
that the addressee agrees to answer the question. In the interpretation, the interpreter
gives the addressee the option to answer or reject the question. This may be due to the
fact that, in English, ‘could you…’ is a common way to frame questions. The interpreter
may not be attending to the special questioning tactics used by the journalist. This may
or may not be because this journalist is asking the question in Chinese and the minister
does not rely on the English interpretation. The effect, though, in this case is to make the
question less direct.
4.1.6 Conventional Indirectness
In interaction, asking questions often risks imposition on the hearer’s negative face wants.
To increase effective communication, speakers tend to compensate hearers’ negative face
by being conventionally indirect, using hedges, minimizing imposition, impersonalizing or
giving deference (Brown and Levinson 1987: 131). In this research it is discovered that the
journalists appear to make efforts to redress the hearer’s face. It is observed that ‘请问/
qingwen/Please (May I) ask’ is consistently used by journalists. Qing wen appears to be
part of the face redress effort made by the Chinese-speaking journalists to the Prime
Minister.
请/Qing (please) in Chinese can be divided into two categories according to its application
(Zhou 2004), that is Qing 1 and Qing 2. Qing 1 is a verb and contains meanings like
‘request’, ‘invite’, ‘employ’, ‘treat’ and Qing2 is an adverb which expresses deference. It
expresses wishing/hoping in a very deferent manner. Qing 2 is often used with action verbs
such as ‘zuo’ (sit), ‘jin’ (come in) or ‘wen’ (ask). Qing 2 is not future-action-bound. ‘Qing
jin’, ‘Qing zuo’ or ‘Qing wen’ do not necessarily imply the hearer’s obligation to abide by
the speaker’s wish or hope (Zhou 2004). Thus ‘qing’ is a very convenient device for
negative politeness. Qing 2 is a direct reflection on how much ‘deference’ a person
deserves from a psychological perspective while Qing 1 is only an indirect reflection.
122
In the data, we will focus on the connotations of ‘qing’ in Qing 2. ‘请问/’Qing wen/ Please
(May I) ask’ is a frequently used form of face redress. The majority of instances of the
‘qing’ structure is ‘qing wen’, thus in this research ‘qing wen’ represents all ‘qing’ structure
expressions. There are two other qing structure expressions in Q3 and Q6, namly qing jiao
(please teach) and ‘qing…hui da’ (please answer). These two ‘qing’ structure expressions
are illustrated in Example 44 and Example 45. Tables 4.11 and 4.12 below illustrate the
frequency of ‘qing wen’ in the ST and the TT.
Chinese questions
Total
Distribution
Qing wen
12
Q1, Q8, Q9, Q10, Q11,
Q12,Q15, Q17, Q3, Q6
Table 4.11 frequency and distribution of ‘qing wen’ in ST
Deferent rendition
Omission
Non-deferent
rendition
Frequency
2
4
6
Distribution
Q1, Q17
Q11 (first qing
Q8, Q9, Q10, Q11
wen), Q15, Q3,
(2nd qing wen), Q12
Q6
Table 4.12 frequency and distribution of the rendition of ‘qing wen’ in TT
Tables 4.11 and 4.12 show the frequency and distribution of ‘qing wen’ and its rendition in
ST and TT. It appears that ‘qing wen’ is very often omitted or rendered without relaying the
deferent connotations. Even in the two cases when ‘qing wen’ is rendered, there is a
difference in the level of deference, as shown in 37 and 38.
39. J. 我想请问总理的是您对去年的宏观调控有怎样的评价？
I wish please (May I) ask Prime Minister be you (H) with regard to last year’s
macro regulation control have how comment?
I. Could you comment on last year with last year’s work with regard to macro
regulation? (Q1)
123
40. J. 请问比中俄经贸合作，比如说在能源上如何，有什么前景?
Please (May I) ask compare China Russia economic trade cooperation, for
example in energy….
I. Could you brief us on the latest developments in economic cooperation…? (Q17)
‘Could’ reflects a certain level of indirectness but since ‘could’ appears with the second
person pronoun ‘you’ which is much more direct and much less deferent than ‘Prime
Minister’ in ST, the rendition becomes more direct than the ST.
In 40 (Q17), although ‘could’ compensates the indirectness in the TT, the use of the first
person pronoun plural and second person pronoun makes the TT appear more direct. In
qing wen no person pronouns are used. Such impersonalization (Brown and Levinson 1987:
13) contributes to the indirectness level in ST.
41. J. 请问您外长，现在您与在华盛顿时候相比，您觉得中美关系是…
Please (May I) ask you (H) foreign minister, now you (H) with in Washington
time compare, you feel China US relationship is contradiction increased?
I. ….so compared with the days in Washington, do you think now in US-China
relations there have been more conflicts and disputes… (Q15)
In 41, there is no attempt to reflect the indirect structure ‘qing wen’. In addition, the
deferent terms of address or person references are not reflected in translation. All the
indirect markers are omitted in the TT. The negative politeness strategy used by the speaker
is not reflected in the interpretation.
42. J. 请问一下总理，香港自从回归每当我们有经济困难的时候...请问总理 最近
香港有关一些政制的争议，会不会影响中央今后继续支持香港经济的发
展？
Please (May I) ask just Prime Minister, Hong Kong since return, every time
when we have economic difficulty time,…. Please (May I) ask Prime Minister,
recently Hong Kong concerning some political system dispute….
I. Since HK’s return to the motherland, each time Hong Kong encountered
economic difficulties…. So my question is (.) will (.)the political dispute in Hong
124
Kong in recent times…. (Q11)
In 42, it can be observed that the speaker tries to draw attention to the coming question with
the ‘qing’ structure plus deferent terms of address. In the TT, all such indirect attempts are
omitted. The way to indicate the coming question is ‘so my question is’, which does not
reflect any effort of face redress.
43. J. 请问温总理您怎么看这个问题，您将采取什么宏观调控措施….请问您怎么
看群众上访的问题？您在平时的工作中是否接触过群众…
I wish to please (May I) ask Wen Prime Minister, you (H) how view this
problem…. Please (May I) ask you (H) how view people up visit authorities
issue…
I. I wonder how do you look at this question....I wonder how do you look at this
social phenomenon…… (Q8)
In English, ‘I wonder’ is an off-record strategy. It is an indirect way of asking the question
(this makes it in part a counter-example) and it attends to negative face wants. However,
‘qing wen’ is a more deferential and formal way of asking the question indirectly while ‘I
wonder’ is less deferential and formal. In addition, no pronoun choice is used in the ST
whereas there is an addition of ‘I’ in the TT. This makes it less formal.
44. J. 请问温总理，在中国和平崛起之后…..
Please (May I) ask Wen Prime Minister, at China peace rise after….
I. So my question is: what what impact will the peaceful rise of China…(Q9)
45. J. 请问总理在今年和本届政府任期内，政治体制改革有哪些具体的…？
Please (May I) ask Prime Minister at this year and this term of government,
political system reform have what specific goal?
I. And my question is what are the specific objectives (.) for political restructuring
this year….(Q10)
125
In 44 and 45, the omission of ‘qingwen’ in the TT shows that the interpreter is more
concerned with relaying what the question is rather than attending to face redress strategies.
In Chinese, the speaker/journalist prefaces the FTA (the actual question part) with
‘qingwen’. As indicated in research comparing certainty and conventional indirectness
(Reiter, Rainey and Fulcher 2005:3) applying the conventional indirect formula in requests
reduces the face-threat and makes the interpretation of such requests easier as compared to
non-conventionally indirect requests (cf. Brown and Levinson 1978, 1987). It is also noted
that when there is more than one question to be asked in a row, ‘qingwen’ can also be used
as a device to sequence the information flow and alert the audience’s attention in a deferent
way.
In the corpus, the interpreters tend to use ‘my question is’ less direct in English than just
asking the question: ‘What are the specific objectives?’ but it is more direct than Chinese
‘Qing wen’ which asks permission to ask the question. We can observe that the ST speaker
has made efforts to attend to the addressee’s face wants when he/she raises the question but
it seems that the interpreter is just concerned with relaying what the question is and getting
the question across.
As indicated above, in the data, there are two variants of ‘qing wen’, that is ‘qing jiao’
(please teach) and ‘qing…hui da’ (please…answer). ‘qing jiao’ (please teach) actually
means ‘please may I ask you to teach me…’ or ‘May I please consult you’. It is more
deferent than ‘qing wen’ since ‘jiao’ (teach) puts the hearer in a higher position than the
speaker. The speaker humbles himself or herself to the level of a student. These variants are
illustrated in 44 and 45; both of them are omitted in the rendition.
46. J. 在这里呢有一个问题要请教温总理….
In here na I have one question wish please consult Wen Prime Minister…
I. ….. The just-concluded session of the National People’s Congress…. (Q3)
47. J. 所以我们想请总理回答一个问题…
so, we wish please prime minister answer one question…
I. …..Will the government take strong measures…. ?(Q6)
126
In these two examples, two variants of ‘qing wen’ are being used by the speaker in the ST.
The way the interpreter deals with them seems no different from the treatment of ‘qing
wen’. The interpreters seem to attend only to what the question is and neglect the face
redress efforts made by the speaker. In this section we have examined how the interpreter
deals with the conventional indirect structure of ‘qing wen’. It appears that this negative
politeness strategy is frequently lost in the interpreter’s version. It seems that the interpreter
is more concerned with relaying what the question is than attending to face redress
strategies. It provides evidence of increased directness in TT. It appears that the
conventional indirect structure of ‘qing wen’ seems to be used frequently in Chinese. It
may be possible that the interpreters consider that a more direct formula such as ‘My
question is…’ is more commonly used in English than, say, ‘May I ask’, and they are
adapting their utterance to be more acceptable in English. If this is the case, it still indicates
an involvement of audience design.
4.1.7 Summary
The examination of the interactive parameters under PF1 and PF1a in section 4.1 provides
us with consistent evidence of reduced deference and interactivity, increased distance and
detachment, increased directness and weakened mitigation (c.f. 2.1.5). It appears that the
interpreter is less concerned with the face management strategies utilized by the speaker. It
provides us with evidence for a correlation between the shifts in the participation
framework and a change in the interpreter’s behaviour. There is a shift between PF1 (ST)
and PF1a (TT) and, as will be shown, there appears to be a shift between PF1a and PF2b as
we shall see in 4.2.
4.2 Participation Framework 2 and PF2b (English questions)
In this section, we will examine the parameters under PF2 and PF2b, which are reproduced
here from Chapter 3 for convenience of reference:
Speaker
English-speaking journalist
127
Addressee
the minister
Auditors
the interpreter and other journalists and officials sitting with the
minister;
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference; the TV audience (outer/mass audience);
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
PF2: Questions asked in English
It should be pointed out that in PF2 the minister is the addressee but due to the language
barrier, he may rely more on the Chinese interpretation.
Speaker
Interpreter;
Addressee
the minister
Auditors
Other correspondents and officials sitting with the minister;
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference; TV audience (outer/mass audience);
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
PF2b: When questions are interpreted from English into Chinese
It should be noted that the minister is the addressee in PF2b and he may actually rely on the
Chinese interpretation.
4.2.1 Terms of address
In the English questions, it is less common for terms of address to be used. Among the ten
English questions (Q20 to Q29), 6 questions do start without using a deferent address term
(cf. 4.1.1). In PF2, it appears that the major trend in the use of address terms is not to use
deferent address terms in ST. There are only 5 occurrences of terms of address with four
used at the turn-initial position and one used embedded. There are examples of zero address
terms.
128
48. J. from German Daily Handelsblatt. There has been a discussion about death
penalty during last week…
I. 德国商报，在上周人大开会时曾经就死刑问题进行过讨论…
German Daily Handelsblatt. At last week People Congress meeting time once
regarding death penalty issue had discussion....
(Q23)
49. J. I am Jimmy Frocris with CNN. During your last visit to Washington…
I. 我是美国CNN的记者。您上一次访问美国期间….
I am America CNN’s journalist. You (H) last time visit America period…(Q24)
These two examples show cases where the journalists do not use any terms of address when
they start their question. When the journalists use no deferent address terms the interpreter
does not add in address terms. It is worth noting that the interpreter constantly adds in the
honorific form of second person reference which is not available in the ST. This will be
discussed in 4.2.2. General deference in the openings of the English questions is not a
distinctive feature. Among the 10 English questions in the data, there are only 3 journalists
(Q21, Q22, Q27) who clearly express greetings to the minister in the openings of the
questions. The deference marker does not appear to be as customary in English questions as
in Chinese questions; however, there are five occurrences of deferent address terms being
used. Examples are provided as 50-52.
50. J. …Reuters News Agency. Mr. Premier…
I.….路透社的记者。总理先生….
Reuters agency’s journalist. Prime Minister Mr….(Q20)
51. J. CNN, thank you Premier…
I. CNN…
CNN… (Q21)
52. J. Good morning, Premier Wen. I am from Press Trust India…
I. 印度报业托拉斯,总理您早….
India press trust, Prime Minister you (H) morning…(Q22)
129
It is observed from the above examples that there are cases where the interpreter relays the
deferent address terms and there are cases where she does not.
4.2.2 Summary
Using deferent address terms is less frequent in English questions in this genre than in
Chinese questions. We have examined some examples with regard to how the interpreters
deal with address terms but unlike in PF1, deferent address terms in PF2 have too few
occurrences to enable a patterned trend to be claimed about how the interpreters deal with
them.
4.2.3 Pronoun Choice
As in PF1, pronoun choice as a whole is worthy of detailed examination in PF2, although
the main focus here will be specifically on 2nd-person reference. The pronoun choice often
used by the English-speaking journalists is ‘you’. There is an equivalent in Chinese which
is ‘你/ni’. The interpreter tends to add in deference by using ‘您/nin’, which contains an
honorific marker. This addition no doubt reflects recognition of the power and status of the
addressee (the minister) by the interpreter. It contributes to an increase in the deference
level in the TT. Some examples are provided for analysis.
53. J. During your last visit to Washington……What did you do to make the US
change its position on this one? Did you scare them? Why is it important to
China that the US and other countries state such a clear position on Taiwan?
Do you think….?
I. 您上一次访问美国期间……您到底做了什么让美国改变这样的政策？您是(.)
拿什么吓唬了美国呢？啊为什么啊就您/您认为……？是不是您认为…？
You (honorific) last time visit United States period…you (honorific) actually did
what let United States change this kind’s policy? You (honorific) is take what
scared United States? Ah why ah you (honorific) think America side…? Is or is
not you (honorific)…?
(Q24.)
130
54. J. About the Constitution I was impressed…. So my question is what do you, premier
Wen, plan to do…?.
I. 我想问您一个关于宪法修订的问题…那么您觉得将来中国方面应该采取什么
措施…？
I wish to ask you (honorific) one concerning constitution revision’s
question……then you (honorific) feel future China side should adopt what
measure….?
(Q25)
55. J. how do you see the prospects of bilateral relations?
I. 您如何看待印中双边关系的前景？
You (honorific) how view India China relationship prospects? (Q22)
56. J. Is your government really planning to abolish death penalty?
I. 那么请问您的政府是不是有计划取消死刑？
Then Please (May I) ask your (honorific) government is or is not have plan
cancel death penalty?
(Q23)
57. J. How do you evaluate the India-China relations during the past one year?
I. 您怎么评价中印关系在过去一年的发展？
You (honorific) how comment China India relationship past one year’s
development?
(Q26)
58. J. And I would also like to know your comments on Pakistan's continued efforts to
resolve the dispute with India and develop neighbourhood in every relation for
peace and development in the region.
I. 第二个问题是我想了解一下您是如何看待巴基斯坦努力和印度解决两国之
间的关系，尤其是处于中国的睦邻友好的政策，对此您有何评价？
Second question is I wish to know just you (honorific) is how view Pakistan try
with India solve two country between’s relationship, especially in China’s good
neighbour friendly policy, to this you (honorific) have what comment? (Q29)
131
When a deferent pronoun choice is used, the negative face of the addressee may be
preserved by the indication of respect for the addressee and acknowledgement of the higher
position. In the English questions, the most common pronoun choice is the second personal
pronoun (including its adjective) ‘you’/’your’ and no deference is added to it. In the
interpretation, it can be seen that deference is added by using an honorific form of ‘you’.
Addressee honorifics are marked forms (Brown and Levinson 1987: 278). In Chinese,
‘您/nin’ is the marked form of ‘你/ni’. It is important to bear in mind that the shift from
‘you’ to ‘您/nin’ is not an obligatory shift as it has been pointed out that there is an
equivalent for ‘you’ in Chinese. The shift is a preferred shift (cf. Mason 2004). It is correct
to use the non-honorific form but that may not conform to the prevailing norm which
respects the authority by giving deference in the target culture. There are examples in the
data where both the journalists and the interpreter use ‘ni’ to address the minister. The
following two examples are cases where the interpreter uses the non-honorific form of
‘you’.
59. J. could China build an army that quote ‘could win any war it has to fight’ as you
stated in your opening address to National People’s Congress?
I. 中国是不是要建设一支能够打得赢的军队？就像你在政府工作报告中所讲
的那样。
China is or is not will build one can win army? Just like you in government
work report middle say so.
60. J. Mr. Premier, the renminbi currency has been the focus of global attention ….But
what reform plan do you favour now and when will the first change occur?
I. 总理先生，人民币的汇率问题呢一直是国际上很关心的一个问题…。那么
眼下你们有没有什么中意的改革计划？
Prime Minister Mr., Reminbi’s exchange rate question always is international
very care’s one question… then at the moment you (plural, non-honorific) have or
have not what favoured reform plan?
(Q20)
The above two examples are quoted to illustrate that it is not obligatory to shift from nonhonorific to honorifics. It is a choice of the interpreter.
132
In Example 60, ‘you’ is translated as ‘ni men/you (plural)’. It needs to be pointed out that
by expanding the addressee to a multiplicity of people, the face-threat seems to be reduced
since the plural form seemingly puts a non-specific group of people (most probably the
government as a whole) on the spot instead of singling out the minister. This is an offrecord strategy. In English there is ambiguity in the number of addressees since ‘you’ both
refers to one person and more than one person. In Chinese such ambiguity can be avoided
by using the single form of the pronoun or the plural form of the pronoun. In addition, in
Chinese it is very rare for people to use the plural honorific form. The honorific form for
the second person pronoun is mostly used in its singular form.
4.2.4 Summary
In PF2 the interpreter often replaces unmarked second person reference with its marked
honorific alternates with only two exceptions (Examples 59, 60). Given that the shift from
the unmarked form to the marked form is not an obligatory shift, there is motivation behind
such shifts. The deference and respect carried by the shift to the marked form seem to show
that the interpreter has chosen to add deference to her addressee. Adding in the deference is
a negative politeness strategy.
4.2.5 Directness to Indirectness
In PF2, a shift by interpreters from directness to indirectness is observed. Qualitative
analysis is provided to examine the shift. Examples 61-73 all illustrate this trend.
61. J. I want to ask question about the Anti-Secession Law. Now in the legislation you
set out what you called China’s right to use non-peaceful means against Taiwan.
I wonder if you could clarify exactly what those means could be?
I. 我想问一个关于(.)反分裂国家法，那么根据这部法律，中国有权采取非和平
的方式，那么您能不能像我们解释一下什么样的方式就算是非和平的方
式？
133
I want to ask one concerning anti-secession law. Then according to this law,
China has right to adopt non-peaceful means. Then you (H) can or can not to us
explain slightly what kind of means are regarded as non-peaceful means? (Q21)
The topic of the question seems to be the anti-secession law. Actually the real theme of the
question is the Taiwan issue. The law targets attempts to split the country. Taiwan has
always wanted to gain its independence. It is very obvious that the law is mainly although
not exclusively about Taiwan. It is common knowledge that the Taiwan issue is the most
sensitive spot in China’s politics. Asking a question about the most sensitive issue to the
Prime Minister constitutes a huge face threat. It is threatening to both negative face and
positive face. It threatens negative face in the sense that the minister may not like being
questioned on the issue, on which the government has a very strong policy and generally
does not tolerate disagreement. It threatens positive face in the sense that it may harm the
minister’s positive image as someone who is a competent leader who makes the right
decisions about policies and laws and who listens to differing voices. The very fact that the
journalist is from CNN signals that the question is going to be very controversial as the
United States often criticises China on its democracy, human rights, foreign trade and
Taiwan.
In terms of lexical choice, there are words that increase the face threat. By using ‘you’
twice (‘…you set out what you called China’s right to…’), the journalist seems to highlight
the Prime Minister’s personal involvement in the legislation and he seems to question the
authority of the law. ‘what you called’ suggests it only represents the minster’s opinion and
others may disagree. This constructs a face-threat to the minister’s positive face wants. The
interpreter considerably redresses the FTA. The omission of ‘you’ and ‘against Taiwan’
makes the utterance vague and therefore less threatening to the face of the addressee. The
interpreter uses a hedge ‘slightly’ to reduce the assertiveness and imposition on the
addressee.
62. J. I wonder if you could clarify exactly what those means could be?
I. 那么您能不能像我们解释一下什么样的方式就算是非和平的方式？
Then you (H) can or can not to us explain slightly what kind of means are
regarded as non-peaceful means? (Q21)
134
There are two functions of modal adverbs, one is to mitigate (or hedge) and the other is to
strengthen the certainty of the claim. In this example ‘exactly’ is a strengthener which
demands a more detailed and accurate answer from the minister. Using such a strengthener
in a request increases the threat to the addressee’s negative face. In the interpretation, it is
observed that the interpreter replaces the strengthener with ‘yixia’ which is often used after
verbs to mean ‘slightly’ (Xinhua online dictionary). Using a strengthener the speaker makes
his/her request clearer and increases the imposition level in his/her request. Using a
mitigator has the opposite effect. The interpreter has minimised the imposition on the
addressee. In Example 62, replacing a modal adverb with strengthening effect reduces
directness in the TT. In Example 63, it can be observed that an addition of a modal adverb
can have the effect of reducing directness.
63. J. If it comes to a broader conflict with the United States…
I. 如果中国遇到了一个范围广阔的冲突，美国也参加进来了...
If China meets a broad conflict, the United States also participated… (Q21)
The ST appears to be very direct and certain about the assumption of China’s involvement
in a possible conflict with the United States. The translation seems to be more ambiguous.
It turns the exclusive participating status of the United States into a less conspicuous coparticipant and puts China in a passive role (‘meets’). The interpretation becomes mitigated
by structuring the utterance to create a slightly different presupposition. In the next example
(Example 64), it will illustrate a shift from a negative perspective to a positive perspective
and has the effect of indirectness.
64. J. it said it has been a heated debate within your government about whether death
penalty makes any sense any more….
I. 大家问死刑是不是还有用…
People ask death penalty is or is not still useful… (Q23)
By using ‘makes any sense any more’, the speaker implies that the death penalty is
senseless, even for some members of the government. The phrase minimizes the usefulness
of the death penalty and indicates that it is no longer meaningful for the current time.
135
‘Haiyouyong/still useful’, on the other hand, does not indicate the speaker’s attitude on the
issue. It mitigates the face threat. In Example 65, it illustrate that the context can give a
negative connotation to some word (e.g. whoever) which do not have a negative
connotation.
65. J. Whoever we talked to in the last weeks and months that told as that the
Constitution and the rights and freedoms that it guarantees on paper don’t
mean much to them….
I. 我跟很多人的交谈里，听他们也表示了这样一种意见，就是说宪法虽将一
些权力和自由写入了宪法，但是在纸头上的东西呢不一定能够得到落实到
生活当中去....
I with many people talk middle, hear they also express such one kind opinion,
that is to say constitution although put some rights and freedoms into constitution,
but in paper’s things ne not necessarily able to get implemented into life…. (Q25)
The journalist is actually expressing a criticism of the Chinese government regarding its
efforts to amend the constitution. However, the journalist tries to make his criticism sound
like an objective fact by stating what other people have told him/her. Reducing the personal
elements in the comment and presenting it as an objective fact is an off-record strategy
which allows the addressee to make the inference to recover what is the intended meaning.
It is an indirect way of expressing criticism by using other people’s comments to express
what one really intends to mean. However, when the journalist describes what other people
say regarding the constitutional issue very assertive expressions are used, such as
‘whoever’ ‘don’t mean much to them’. This assertion certainly imposes a face-threat on the
addressee. The interpreter mitigates the threat by using ‘many people’ and ‘not necessarily
able to get implemented in real life’. ‘Whoever’ is a very strong way to indicate the
unanimity of a shared opinion of all the people interviewed by him/her. ‘Many people’ does
not share such an implicature. ‘Don’t mean much to them’ is a very blunt way to say that
the amendment efforts are meaningless. The words used by the interpreter are much less
face-threatening since they express a situation, i.e. the implementation difficulty which is
likely to happen to any regulation or law. It is clear that the interpreter has mitigated the
face-threat to the addressee in the utterance.
136
66. J. So people complaint that in reality even though the Constitution is more than
progressive there is still no rights of assembly, there is still no real right for
freedom to speak and there is no real press freedom.
I. 虽然宪法条文规定的内容是非常有先进性的，但是(.)现实的生活当中，很多
自由和权利得到了一定的限制，比如说媒体的自由，言论的自由等等。
Even though Constitution stipulations’ content is very progressive, but in real life,
many freedoms and rights got certain restriction, for example press freedom,
speech freedom etc. (Q25)
In this example, the expressions used by the journalist such as ‘no rights of assembly’, ‘no
real right’, ‘no real press freedom’ suggest a very assertive claim. Such an assertive claim
has great potential to damage the positive face image of the minister and the Chinese
government. The interpreter uses a mitigator ‘certain’ to suggest that these rights are
restricted to a certain level. In addition, the interpreter uses ‘etc.’ instead of listing all the
rights being mentioned by the journalist. Being vague is also an off-record strategy to
redress face (Brown and Levinson 1987: 214 ). With the shift, the interpreter mitigates the
face threat level in the TT.
67. J. other four parties were highly sceptical were increasingly sceptical of North
Korea position that doesn’t have the highly-enriched uranium program…
I. 其他四方之间对朝鲜是不是拥有高浓缩铀似乎还有着分歧…
other four parties middle to North Korea is or is not have highly-enriched
uranium seems still have difference… (Q27)
By using ‘highly sceptical’, the journalist implies that the four parties do no believe the
North Koreans’ position. The interpreter uses a vague (and weaker) expression to describe
the situation: ‘seems still have difference’. Using a more ambiguous expression may be due
to the Chinese government’s position on this issue. The Chinese government never clearly
states that it suspects that North Korea has a uranium program or accuses North Korea of
lying. As stated earlier in 3.2.3.1, the government interpreters are required to know what
the Chinese government’s official position is on important international issues. The shift
may reflect the fact that the interpreter has priorities other than just being faithful to the ST.
137
In Example 68, it illustrates the link between a general word with indirectness and a
specific word with directness.
68. J. linked China with Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program.... whether or not China
did help Pakistan or any other countries to develop nuclear weapons.
I. 指出中国和巴基斯坦有关于核计划方面的合作...中国有没有帮助巴基斯坦或
者别的什么国家来进行核方面的开发。
Pointed China and Pakistan regarding nuclear plan aspect’s cooperation…
China have or not have help Pakistan or other what country carry out nuclear
aspect’s development. (Q27)
This is another example of using off-record strategy. The interpreter is replacing a specific
term i.e. ‘nuclear weapon’ with a more general term ‘nuclear area’. It is clear that ‘nuclear
weapon’ is a negative concept but ‘nuclear’ can be used for good purposes to help energy
problems. By broadening the word’s connotation, the negative effect is reduced. It hurts
China’s public image if China helps Pakistan to develop nuclear weapons. The shift
preserves China’s public image for the addressee.
In PF2b, there is a consistent use of a conventionally indirect formula by the interpreter. It
consists of a verb (often a modal verb) with negative plus the same verb in Chinese, such as
会不会(can or can not/will or will not) 24，能不能 (can or can not)？可以不可以 (may or
may not)，是不是 (be or be not). These modal verbs are often used in a question to make it
sound less direct. Modal verbs make requests more mitigated and less direct and use of the
modal verbs in the formula of verb + negative + verb makes the requests more mitigated
and less direct as it appears to offer the option to the addressee of rejecting the imposition.
For example, when we translate ‘May I come in?’ it is normally translated as 我可以进来
吗？/ I may come in? It becomes more indirect if it is translated as 我可不可以进来？/ I
may or may not come in?
24
The English translation of such a formula does not follow the word order in Chinese for the convenience of
understanding. Literally, the formula is ‘can not can’, ‘be not be’ etc.
138
Examples 69-73 provide evidence of increased mitigation and indirectness in the relaying
of English questions into Chinese.
69. J. But what reform plan do you favour now…
I. 那么眼下你们有没有什么中意的改革计划？
Then currently you have or have not what favoured reform plan? (Q20)
70. J. Can India and China be good friends and good neighbours?
I. 印度和中国是不是能够成为好朋友、好邻居？
India and China be or be not able to become good friends, good neighbours?
(Q22)
71. J. Is your government really planning to abolish death penalty?
I. 那么请问您的政府是不是有计划取消死刑？
Then Please (May I) ask your (H) government is or is not have plan cancel death
penalty. (Q23)
72. J. Do you think it will change or influence the outcome of the elections and the
referendum in Taiwan next week?
I. 是不是您认为他们明确阐明了立场就会影响台湾将于下个星期举行的选举和
公投的结果呢？
is or is not you (H) think they clearly expressed position will influence Taiwan will
at next week hold election and referendum result ne? (Q24)
73. J. And secondly would China be willing to accept some kind of inspection or
whatever to show that China would use it only for civilian purposes?
I. 第二点就是，中国愿不愿意接受某种形式的核查来确保这样的设备仅仅是
用于民用的、和平的目的？
Second point is China willing or not willing accept some kind of inspection to
ensure such equipment only use civilian peaceful purpose? (Q28)
From the above examples, it is important to note that using the verb + negative + verb
formula is not an obligatory shift. Such a structure does make the request sound more
139
mitigated and less imposing compared to a direct request. It should be pointed out that
when such an indirect structure is used the addressee is always the minister. This suggests
that audience design does have some influence over the interpreting strategies.
There are cases where the expression is not used to increase indirectness when the formula
is used to translate ‘if or whether’.
74. J. I wonder if you could clarify exactly what those means could be?
I. 那么您能不能像我们解释一下什么样的方式就算是非和平的方式？
Then you can or can not to us explain just what kind of means are regarded as
non-peaceful means? (Q21)
75. J. And I would like to know if any positive achievements have made during the
boundary negations between our two countries?
I. 中印两国在解决边境问题上有没有取得什么积极的成就？
China India two country at solve border question up have or have not achieve any
positive achievement. (Q26)
In examples 74 and 75 the modal verb + negative + modal verb structure is a representative
translation of the English ‘if/whether’ structure. It does not increase the indirectness of the
utterance.
4.2.6 Summary
It appears that in PF2b the interpreter tends to mitigate face-threat by being indirect, being
ambiguous, by using mitigating devices or by using the conventionally indirect structure.
There is a clear trend of shifts from Indirectness to Directness in PF1 and PF1a and a trend
of Directness to Indirectness in PF2 and PF2b. It is evidence that the interpreter is playing
an ‘advocacy’ (Wadensjö 1998:41) role rather than mere ‘interpreting.’ This is very likely
to be related to the participation framework and audience design since all the factors remain
constant except the participant roles in the interaction. In PF1a, the directness is increased
when the (English-speaking) auditors instead of the addressee (the minister) need the
140
interpretation. In PF2b, the indirectness is increased when the addressee (the minister)
needs the interpretation.
4.3 Participation Framework 3 and PF3c (Replies)
In this section, we will examine the parameters under PF3 and PF3c which are reproduced
here from Chapter 3 for convenience of reference:
Speaker
the minister
Addressee
the journalist who asks the question;
Auditors
the interpreter, other government officials sitting with the
speaker and the rest of the correspondents
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference; TV audience (outer/mass audience).
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
PF3: Replies provided by minister
Speaker/Mediator
Interpreter
Addressee
the correspondent who asks the question;
Auditors
the minister; other correspondents and officials sitting with the
minister;
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference; TV audience(outer/mass audience).
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
PF3c: Replies interpreted from Chinese into English
It needs to be noted that in PF3c, if the journalist who asks the question is Chinesespeaking, then the auditors, particularly English-speaking ones, become the indirect
addressees who rely on the interpretation.
141
4.3.1 Terms of Address
In the minister’s replies, using honorifics in terms of address is very rare. No honorific
personal pronoun is used by the minister. There are some instances where the minister uses
institutional role plus title or plus name of news agency as direct address terms to the
journalists. There are only three such examples.
76. M. 谢谢你，香港记者，民报记者。
Thank you, Hong Kong Journalist, Minbao Journalist.
I. I would like to thank you for your question. (R4T1)
77. M. 记者先生，你也可以翻开 1861 年贵国制定的两部反分裂法，不也是同样
的内容吗？…
Mr. Journalist you also may open 1861 year your (honorific) country make
two anti-secession law, not also is same content?
I. If you care to read two anti-secession resolutions adopted in the United States in
around 1861, you will find that they are similar to each other.
(R21T1)
78. M. …请记者先生告诉伟大的印度人民，中印两国不是竞争的对手，而是朋
友…
Please Mr.journalist tell great Indian people, China India two country are not
competition’s rival, but friend.
I. I wish to ask this reporter to send my message back to the Indian people that
China and India are not competitors, we are friends. (R22T1)
As can be seen from 76 - 78, the minister only in one instance (76) responds to the
journalists’ greetings with direct address terms. In 77, a direct address term ‘Mr Journalist’
may be used to draw attention from the addressee and highlight an important part in the
utterances. With the omission, the interactivity is reduced. In 78, a direct address term is
shifted to a third person reference. Again, the shift has an effect of reduced interactivity. It
can be observed that the part that follows the address term consists of very emotion-loaded
statements. In 77, following the address term, the minister responds to criticism about the
142
release of the anti-secession law by relating the law to a similar law in the country which
the journalist represents. It is very obvious from the minister’s response that he thinks the
accusation is not justified. In a similar instance, Example 78, the minister displays strong
affection towards India and the Indian people.
It seems that only when the minister is going to express a strong emotion or reaction (such
as gratitude, response to criticism and strong affection) does he use address terms. This
usage helps draw the audience’s attention to the upcoming part. It boosts the interactivity
between the minister and the audience. It appears that the interpreter does not relay such
address terms and therefore the emphatic effect can be lost as a result.
In other respects, the replies from the minister seem not to be very interpersonal. There are
a few cases where the third person reference ‘ji zhe/journalist’ is used. It is not common for
‘ni/you’ to be used.
Examples 79-82 show third person address terms.
79. M. …..正如记者女士所讲的，中日关系也存在着障碍…
Just as journalist lady said, China Japan relationship also exist obstacle.
I. But as you said，there are obstacles to this relationship… (R18T1)
80. M.…. 我想回答这位记者女士的问题….
I wish answer this journalist lady’s question.
I. ....So to answer you question….
(R9T1)
81. M. 至于记者谈到的修改的宪法能不能执行好，我想我们有两条原则。
With regard to journalist talked amended constitution can or can not execute well,
I think we have two piece principle.
I. Just now you ask about whether this amendment will truly be enforced in practice.
Let me tell you that we always follow two principles. (R25T1)
82. M. 谢谢这位台湾记者的提问。
143
Thank this Taiwan journalist’s question.
I. I would like to thank the journalist from Taiwan for raising this question.
(R3T2)
The evidence suggests that there is strong tendency for the minister not to use address terms
(either by job title or by second person pronouns). In the face-to-face direct interaction
shown in Examples 79 – 81, the speaker is not addressing the addressee directly but refers
to him/her in the third person. In this way, the minister appears to take a depersonalized and
distancing position towards his addressee. Such a distancing position is not always relayed
by the interpreter, who omits such terms or uses 2nd person pronouns instead. There is only
one exception when the interpreter interprets such address terms as third person reference.
The use of address terms and pronoun choice reflect how the speaker considers his
relationship with his addressee. When the speaker avoids the use of direct address terms (a
distinctive feature of the minister’s talk in this genre of press conferences) and when he
chooses to use third-person reference to his addressee in a face-to-face interaction, it shows
that the speaker may not have only his addressee in mind when he answers the question.
The audience that he intends his replies for may include not only the immediate audience
(1991:76) at the press conferences and but also the outer/mass audience (1991:76)
including the TV audience and the international community (c.f. Section 3.3. The minister).
It appears that the interpreter does not attend to such nuances in the way the speaker uses
address terms and pronoun choice.
4.3.2 Pronoun Choice
In the data, there is a strong tendency for ‘we/our’ to be added in the interpretation of the
minister’s replies. A table is provided for figures of occurrence of first person plural
reference in the ST and the TT.
First
Person
Plural First Person Pronoun used
Pronoun used by Minister
Replies
to
Chinese 59
by Interpreter
144
144
Questions
Replies
to
English 49
71
Questions
Total
108
215
Table 14. Occurrence of First Person Plural Pronoun in Replies
Table 14 divides the replies into two categories. One includes the replies to Chinese
questions and the other includes the replies to English questions. Both sets of replies show
an increase in the use of ‘we/our/us’ in TT. In the replies to Chinese questions, the use of
such forms in TT is more than twice as many as in the ST while the increase of such forms
in the replies to English questions is comparatively smaller. Pronoun choice by ‘We/our/us’
is a strong indicator of in-group membership and solidarity.
Examples 82 and 83 illustrate the use of the first person plural pronoun 25.
82. M. 过去两年，我们在经济上遭遇了一场遭遇战，我们及时果断地采取了宏
观调控的措施…我们成功地避免了经济的大起大落…我们保持了经济平
稳较快地运行…但是，我们丝毫不可松懈，摆在我们面前的形式如同逆
水行舟，不进则退。我想换一个角度给大家讲一下...第二，在我们的面前
遇到一系列两难问题…当然，我们将更加注重区别对待、有保有压…
Past two year, we in economy encountered one unplanned battle, we in time
decisively adopted macro-control’s measure…we successfully avoided economic
big ups and downs…we maintained economic stable fast operation… but we
slightly not may slacken, display in us front’s form like upstream go ship, not
forward then backward. I want to change a perspective to everyone talk just…
Second, in our face front met a series of two difficulty problem…of course we
will more pay attention to distinguish treat, have protection, have pressure…
I. In the past couple of years，we have been facing a battle upfront in terms… To
fight this battle we have combined a series of policies. We can say now that
these policy measures have achieved…. We have been successful in avoiding
major ups and downs in the economy… Now we mustn’t slacken our efforts in
25
In this section the occurrence of ‘we’, ‘our’, ‘us’ are all included under first person pronoun plural.
145
the slightest way. The situation we are facing now is like going upstream. If we
don’t forge ahead. we will simply fall back. Let me put the problem we face in
proper perspective….We face considerable difficulties in further increasing…In
particular， because of the soaring prices… it is more difficult for us to achieve
these goals…Second,
we are facing a series of dilemmas in our
economy…because it will make it more difficult for us to create jobs….
Third，the problems we face in China’s economy can all boil down to structural
problems... We mustn’t stop we mustn’t waste our previous efforts. In the
meantime we must also pay special attention to differentiate expansive and
contractive measures. We must also take administrative….
83. M. 第一，消除经济运行中不健康不稳定的因素….要靠改革；解决经济生活
中的深层次矛盾和问题…要靠改革；实现社会公平与正义…也要靠改
革…对于今年的改革，我列了五项任务…第三，推进金融改革。这是中
国经济生活当中的一个十分重要而且问题较多的环节，要下大力气….今
年不仅是改革年，确切说是改革攻坚年。
(R1T1)
First, eliminate economic operation middle unhealthy unstable factor…need to
rely on reform, solve economic life middle deep-rooted conflicts and problems…
need to rely on reform, realize social fairness and justice… also need to rely on
reform… with regard to this year’s reform, I listed five tasks… third, promote
financial reform, this is China economic life middle a very important and
problem many chain, need to make huge effort… this year not only reform,
exactly speaking is reform breaking difficulty year.
I. First, to eliminate the destabilizing and unhealthy factors in the economy… we
have to rely on reform. Second, to address the deep-rooted problems in the
economy… we will have to rely on reform. Third， to realize social fairness and
justice… we will have to rely on reform…. For this year， there are 5 priorities in
our reform…third, to promote financial reform， which is a critical and often
problematic aspect of our economy and requires great efforts from us;…. It is a
year we are going to fight the toughest battle in the reform process….
(R2T1)
These examples show the increase in the use of first person plural pronouns. What is worth
pointing out is that in Chinese there is one kind of common sentence structure which omits
146
the subjects of verbs. Adding ‘we’ as the subject is one but not the exclusive option to
translate such sentence structures. Therefore the shift from ‘zero subject’ to the addition of
‘we’ is not an obligatory shift. In order to interpret such no-subject syntactic structures, the
interpreter can use the passive syntactic structure in English without committing to a
subject or add the omitted/implicit subject (using ‘we’ is one of the options). It appears that
the interpreter makes this choice among a few available options.
The significant increase in such pronouns seems to increase the solidarity level in TT
between interpreters and the government they represent. It seems that the interpreter is not
playing a ‘nonpartisan’ role (Anderson 2002:213). It appears that the interpreter is
translating for an out-group but she sees herself as part of the speaker’s group i.e. China. A
good contrasting example can be found in Example 44 when the Hong Kong journalist says
‘every time when we have economic difficulty’, the interpreter replaces ‘we’ with ‘Hong
Kong’. This clearly shows that the interpreter does not identify herself with the Hong Kong
journalist. A contrast exists between the trend of detachment and distancing in PF1a and a
trend of solidarity in PF3c. It appears that the interpreter does not identify herself with the
journalists but she does identify herself with the minister. As mentioned earlier, these press
conference interpreters are civil servants. It appears that the interpreter is showing that she
is a loyal employee (see 3.3.3) with the government with the increased used of ‘we/our’.
4.4 Face-work Analysis of Longer Sequences
The previous sections have analyzed face-work under various parameters. The examples
used for previous analysis focus on the occurrence of a single parameter so sequences used
for the analysis are not very long. This section explores face-work in longer sequences to
see the accumulated effects.
In sequences 84 – 90, the questioning is structured around two main themes which
potentially or directly threaten the minister’s face. The themes include (a) domestic issues
such as social, economic, political and legal problems; (b) international relations such as
Sino-US relations, China’s cooperation with other countries, China’s positioning on certain
147
international affairs. The replies from the minister may reflect his response to face concerns
and his attempt to maintain his face wants.
84. J. 总理您好，我是中央电视台的记者。也就是在去年的这个时候，非典疫情
的肆虐让人们忧心忡忡。作为刚刚上任的新一届政府的总理，您所承担的
压力是我们常人都难以体会到的。那个时候您常说，一个民族在灾难中失
去的必将在民族的进步中获得补偿。您如何评价过去的一年？另外您还说
到，一个民族在灾难中形成了凝聚力，定将推动民族的团结和进步。您认
为今年我们在发展中面临着最重要的问题是什么？最困难的问题又是什
么？谢谢您。 (Q7)
Prime Minister, good day to you (H). I am central TV station’s journalist. Also
it is in last year’s this time, SARS’s wild spreading make people worry very
much. As just started new term government’s prime minister, you (H)
shouldered pressure is we ordinary people all hard to feel. That time you often
say, one nation in disaster lost will in nation’s progress obtain compensation.
You (H) how comment past one year. In addition you said one nation in disaster
formed cohesion will definitely promote national cohesion and progress. You
(H) think this year we in development facing most important is what? Most
difficult problem is what? Thank you.
I. I am with CCTV. It was roughly about this time last year that the raging SARS
epidemic had many people seriously worried. The pressure you felt then as the
new premier of China was probably unimaginably intense to the people in the
street. I remembered you often said, what a nation lost to disasters would be
compensated for in its progress. So my question is, how would you comment on
the year that has just passed? You also remarked that a nation’s cohesion formed
in the course of disastrous experiences would undoubtedly boost the unity and
progress of that nation. Then what do you see are the most outstanding problems
we will face in China’s development this year, and what do you anticipate are
the most difficult issues? Thank you!
The Journalist is from CCTV (China Central Television). This is the only national TV
channel and it is the central government’s mouthpiece. It has the largest viewership in
China and the largest coverage. This background information indicates that it is very likely
that the journalist will address the minister in a certain way and the question will be asked
148
in a certain manner. Very critical or controversial questions or questions that may cause
embarrassment or have a negative impact on the government’s image are not to be expected
from CCTV journalists.
The pre-statement of the question is an important tactic to provide some useful information
to prepare for the actual question. The pre-statement is often used by the journalist to make
the addressee view the issue/question from the perspective that the journalist wishes the
addressee to see. Therefore, the pre-statement can be controversial for the addressee since
he may not share the same perspective as the journalist. If we examine the question, the
journalist seems to be very empathetic towards the Prime Minister for a difficult year that
he has gone through. This redresses the FTA in the question that is to come. When a new
epidemic such as SARS breaks out, there are going to be victims due to the fact that
effective treatment takes time to come around. As a result, it is likely that people panic and
there are often chaotic situations in the affected areas. 忧心忡忡/ worry very much is a much
mitigated way to describe the situation. In this question, the pre-statement seems to share
the perspective of the addressee. The journalist seems to show that she is a co-operator who
shares the common ground with the addressee by quoting the words of the addressee twice
before the actual question part. As indicated by Brown and Levinson (1987:122), this is a
positive politeness strategy when the speaker assumes H’s point of view to stress the
common ground he/she shares with H. We find that the actual questions are very general
questions. Usually journalists do not like asking general questions. General questions give
the addressee too much flexibility in his response. A very common tactic for journalists is
to ask a very specific question so that the chance for the addressee to beat around the bush
is reduced. General questions such as those in 83 seem to be a typical way of letting the
minister reiterate his national policy which is available in all major newspapers and in the
government’s report. This question does not actually fish for new information. By
designing the question in this manner, the imposition on the minister is mitigated. This is an
instance of negative face redress.
There are three instances when the interpreter further mitigates the utterances. In ‘It was
roughly about this time last year….’ (TT) a hedge is used and it reduces the certainty of the
claim of time. In ‘The pressure you felt then as the new premier of China was probably
unimaginably intense to the people in the street,’ (TT) a similar hedge is used to reduce the
149
commitment of the truth condition of the claim. The difference between ’
最困难的问题又是什么/ most difficult problem is what’ (ST) and ‘and what do you anticipate
are the most difficult issues,’ (TT) is that the questioner seems to indicate that the reply
from the minister will state an objective fact while the interpreter seems to suggest that the
minister’s reply is the minister’s opinion. With the added mitigation, the interpreter’s face
is potentially protected.
The interpreter adds the item ‘then’ in two instances. The first ‘then’ is a temporal and
exophoric marker. As pointed out by Fillmore (cited in Brown & Levinson 1987:118), the
unmarked deictic centre is ‘the one where the speaker is the central person, the time of
speaking is the central time…’ In ‘The pressure you felt then as the new premier of China’,
‘then’ indicates that the speaker is switching to the addressee’s point of view and the
temporal deictic centre is one where the addressee is the central person. Taking the
addressee’s point of view is a positive politeness strategy.
In ‘Then what do you see are the most outstanding problems we will face…’, ‘then’ is a
logical and endophoric marker. It refers back to the questioner’s own previous speech. It
serves the purpose of marking the link between neighbouring segments more explicit.
85. M. 过去的一年确实是很不寻常的一年，在党中央领导下，经过全国人民的
努力，抗击非典取得重大胜利，经济社会发展取得显著成就，这些成绩
来之不易。但是，成绩只是表明过去。我还要说，一个聪明的民族是一
个善于学习的民族，特别是在困难中学习的民族。因此，重要的不是成
绩，而是经验、教训和启示。(R7T1)
Past one year is very extraordinary one year. At the Party Centre leadership,
through whole nation people’s effort, combat SARS achieved major success,
economy, society development achieve considerable achievement. These
achievement come not easy but achievement only is represent past. I also wish
to say a wise nation is one good at learning’s nation, especially in difficulty
middle learning’s nation. Thus important is not achievement, but experience,
lesson and inspiration.
150
I. Last year indeed er has been most er extraordinary for China. Under the
leadership of the CPC Central Committee and with the concerted efforts (.) of
the entire Chinese population, we won the important victory against the SARS
and also scored obvious achievements (.) in our economic and social
development. These achievements have not come by easily. However, they are
only a reflection of the past. So here I want to add (.) that a wise nation is the
nation who is good at learning. especially learning from problems and
difficulties. So what is important is not those achievements themselves, but
rather the experiences and lessons and inspirations (.) we gained from the
achievements.
This is the first part (turn one) of the Prime Minister’s reply to the question from a CCTV
journalist. The reply is a summary of the past year and this is what has been requested by
the journalist. By responding to the journalist’s request, the Prime Minister attends to the
journalist’s positive face by attending to her needs and wants for information. Not all
replies have this function since the minister may choose not to provide the information that
the journalist is asking for or may reject the claim made by the journalist in the prestatement part of the question. It is uncommon to see politicians answering exactly the
questions journalists ask in such speech events. If the journalists ask about something that
is a well-established fact, the news value is very low. CCTV is the government’s
mouthpiece so their audience is provided with news that the government regards as
important.
The summary provided by the Prime Minister is done in a very positive tone. It uses many
words with positive connotations such as 不寻常的一年/extraordinary one year,
重大胜利/major
success,
显著成就/considerable
achievement,
成绩/achievement,
聪明的民族/wise nation. With such positive connotations, the Prime Minister is maintaining
his positive self-image as a very competent leader. The discourse marker ‘但是/but’ marks
contrast (Schiffrin 1988: 152). It implies a contrast between a previous part and a following
part. What follows the contrast is a more modest tone. It emphasizes the importance of
learning lessons from difficulty. This is a very good tactic to further protect the minister’s
positive face. In Chinese culture, modesty is a highly valued quality (see 2.3.2.7 Gu 1990).
Expressions of modesty improve his image as a competent leader. On the other hand,
151
expressing conceitedness or a high opinion of one’s own achievements or ability does not
generally enhance the speaker’s positive face in Chinese culture. Expressing modesty
enhances the speaker’s positive face.
The interpreter adds in more junctive devices such as ‘so here’. This makes the linkage
more explicit. ‘So’ indicates cohesion between adjacent propositions and ‘here’ emphasizes
the speaker’s perspective. The interpreter uses more deixis such as ‘we’ (discussed in 4.3.2)
and ‘those’. Adopting the speaker’s perspective and the addition of ‘we’ indicate that the
interpreter is showing solidarity with the minister. One of the sociality rights (c.f. SpencerOatey’s sociality rights under 2.3.2.6) of the interpreters is to claim an image of a
responsible employee of the government. With the addition of junction, deixis, and filling
in the omitted parts, the interpreter is managing the information to adapt to the audience.
The details of information management can be found in Chapter 5. It should be noted that
the interpreter adds ‘we’ and ‘our’ in the TT. It does indicate that the interpreter is claiming
solidarity with the minister. It can serve as evidence that she is trying to present an image as
a loyal employee (see 3.3.3) to the minister.
86. M. 对今年的工作，我始终保持清醒的头脑，安不忘危，治不忘乱，要有忧
患意识，看到前进中存在的困难和问题。我们工作中最重要的是保持经
济平稳较快发展，最困难的是农业、农村、农民问题，最关心的是涉及
群众利益的事情，最根本的是改革、创新和奋进。面对困难，我们有信
心、有办法、有希望，一定能经受住新的考验，决不辜负人民的期望。
(R7T2)
Regarding this year’s work, I always keep sober mind, security not forget danger,
order not forget chaos, need to have worry awareness, see in advancing existing
difficulty and problem. We work among most important is maintain economic
stable and fast development, most difficult is agriculture and rural area, farmer
issue. Most concerned is concerning public interest issue, most fundamental is
reform, innovate and progress. Facing difficulty, we have confidence, have ways,
have hopes, definitely can stand new test, never fail public’s expectation.
I. In terms of the work of the government for this year, we must have a sober (.)
mind e::. In security, we should never forget about the dangers and in times of
peace we should always be (.) alert (.) to the potentials for chaos. That is we
should always er keep high er alert and on guard against the potential risks and
152
problems and clearly understand the various difficulties er and er problems that
may crop up in our way ahead. So the most important aspect of our work is to
maintain stable and relatively fast economic growth. The most difficult issues
we have to grapple with relate to agriculture, the rural areas and farmers. What I
am most concerned about are those matters and issues that bear on the e::
interest, vital interests of our people and our most fundamental response to
these problems is through reform, innovation and forging ahead despite
difficulties. So we have the confidence, the means and we have the optimism
that we will surely stand all new tests. and never fail the expectations of the
Chinese people.
The Prime Minister answers the second question from the CCTV journalist. He uses idioms
(安不忘危，治不忘乱/security not forget danger, order not forget chaos) and parallel sentences.
These devices show a good knowledge of literature and command of style. In Chinese
culture, such knowledge is highly respected. It does not only reflect that the speaker has a
good education but also implies his/her class and level. It is very common to hear senior
Chinese politicians recite poems during their speech and quote from ancient philosophy
since such knowledge enhances positive face. In the interpretation, the meaning of these
utterances comes across but their stylistic features and the indication of a good knowledge
of literature do not come across. The positive face enhancement effect is not reflected in the
TT.
The interpreter seems to adopt a different footing as compared to the speaker when she
adds in ‘the government’ and changes ‘I’ into ‘we’ in ‘对今年的工作，我始终保持清醒的头脑/
Regarding this year’s work, I always keep sober mind’. With the addition and shift, a
change of footing is effected. When the Prime Minister is speaking at a press conference,
he represents the government. Even when he uses ‘I’, quite often it can be understood to
mean ‘the government’ or ‘we’ (the collective leadership). The shift emphasizes the fact
that the Prime Minister is speaking on behalf of the government. Whether the Prime
Minister uses ‘I’ or ‘we’, the interpreter adopts the footing as ‘we’ throughout this turn of
reply. It does indicate that the interpreter is claiming solidarity with the minister. It can
serve as evidence that she is trying to present an image as a loyal employee (see 3.3.3) to
153
the minister. This is linked with the interpreters’ sociality rights (c.f. Spencer-Oatey’s
sociality rights).
87. M. 新华社记者：总理您好！我是新华社记者，也是新华网的记者。首先请
允许我代表全体新华社记者，感谢总理在百忙之中登录我们的新华网。
总理，去年您曾经讲过，宏观调控对政府是一个新的重大考验，这个考
验不亚于 SARS 的考验。现在一年多过去了，我想请问总理的是您对去年
的宏观调控有怎样的评价？今年宏观调控有什么特点？力度会不会进一
步加大？
(Q1)
Prime Minister, good day to you (H). I am xinhua agency journalist, also am
xinhua net’s journalist. First please allow me on behalf of whole xinhua agency
journalist, thank Prime Minister in hundred busy middle log on our xinhua net.
Prime Minister, last year you (H) once spoke, macro regulation control with
regard to government is one very new major test, this test no less than SARS’
test. Now one year more passed, I wish Please (May I) ask Prime Minister is
you (H) with regard to last year’s macro regulation control have how comment?
This year macro regulation control have what feature? Strength will not will
further increase?
I. I am representing Xinhua News Agency as well as Xinhua Net. On behalf of all
the employees of Xinhua News Agency, I would like to thank you, Mr. Premier
e:: for taking time out of your busy schedule to log on to the xinhuanet.com
Last year you said (.) macro-regulation was a new and severe task for the
government, it was no easier a task than fighting against SARS. Now a year has
passed. Could you comment on last year with last year’s work with regard to
macro regulation? Could also speak of the new features or characteristics of the
macro regulatory for this year? Will you intensify these policy measures?
In 87, the journalist is from the Xinhua News Agency which plays a similar function as
CCTV i.e. the government’s mouthpiece. The journalist first attends to the Prime Minister’s
face by exaggerating approval of the Prime Minister’s action (i.e. taking time out of his
very busy schedule logging on to Xinhua net). She recognizes the Prime Minister’s action
by expressing gratitude on behalf of all her colleagues. Her pre-statement is similar to that
in Example 83. It quotes what the addressee has said before. The quote implies that the
speaker shares the addressee’s perspective, thus claiming common ground. By using the
154
quote in the pre-statement, the speaker indicates that the question is about a safe topic
(Brown and Levinson 1987:112). Using a safe topic is an attempt by the speaker to seek
agreement (ibid.) with the hearer. Being aware of the imposition of questioning, the
journalist seems to seek possible ways to find agreement with the addressee. It should be
noted that although the interpreter conveys the expression of gratitude (‘On behalf of all the
employees of Xinhua News Agency, I would like to thank you….’) to the minister, there is
a consistent increased directness in the TT due to the omission of deferent address terms,
the shift from honorific second person pronoun to non-honorific ones and the omission of
conventional indirect structure (‘Qing wen’).
88. J. 温总你好，我是姓郑，郑天任美国彭博新闻，谢谢孔泉发言人给我的机
会提供问题。中国经济在快速发展出现了很多社会问题，包括贫富差
距。解决三农问题是您最大的愿望，可是有专家说，除非加强农民土地
使用权或者还给农民土地产权，三农问题可能很难得到解决。您认为把
土地产权还给农民是可能的吗？
(Q16)
Primier Wen, you good, I be surname Zheng, Zheng Tianren America
Bloomberg news. Thank Kong Quan Spokesperson give my chance provide
question. China economy at rapid development appeared many social problem,
including poor rich gap. Solve three agriculture problem be you (H) biggest
wish but have expert say, unless strengthen farmer land use right or return
farmer land ownership, three agriculture problem may very hard get solve.
You (H) think make land ownership return to farmer be possible ma?
I. I would like to thank the spokeperson for giving this opportunity of asking
questions. Good morning, Premier. My question is a lot of social problems have
cropped up in the course of rapid economic development in China. One of them
is the wealth gap. To address problems facing agriculture, rural areas and
farmers is top on your agenda. But some people are saying unless farmers are
granted the right to use land， or they are transferred the ownership of the land，
it is impossible to solve the problems they face. Do you think it is possible to
grant farmers the land use right or give them the ownership of land?
This question is from an American journalist who asks his question in Chinese. His
introduction of himself is different from most of the Chinese-speaking journalists.
155
Generally, the journalists only announce which media they represent and do not give their
own name. Such practice seems to indicate that the identity of each individual journalist is
not important; they are regarded as a collective body. In TT, the interpreter omits the
journalist’s name. Unlike other journalists, this journalist expresses his gratitude to the
Kong Quan, the spokesman, for choosing him to ask the question. Similarly, the interpreter
does not identify the name of the spokesman. With the omission of personal identity, it
seems that the personal identity of the participants in the press conference is not regarded as
important. What appears to be important is the institutional role each participant plays.
This journalist’s question seems to be more specific than previous examples. In his prestatement, he identifies what the problem is and he proposes a solution to the problem. His
question is about whether his proposed solution is possible. Such a questioning tactic is
very face-threatening to the addressee since he leaves the minister very little flexibility in
answering the question because the journalist is requesting a confirmation for his proposed
solution to the identified problem. Apart from the imposition, he does attend to the Prime
Minister’s positive face wants by showing that he cares what the Prime Minister is
concerned about (i.e. the three agriculture-related problems). He also attempts to protect his
own face as well by stating that the proposed solution is some expert’s opinion.
The journalist tries to establish the identified problem and solution as fact although they
may be disputable for the addressee. A potential dispute over his pre-statement is the
validity of ‘some expert’. The journalists often quote from some authoritative sources such
as scientists, scholars and specialized institutions and journals. Such a tactic enhances the
journalist’s face as a competent journalist who has done some research and has reliable
resources. The interpreter seems to pick this potential dispute up and changes ‘some expert’
to ‘some people’. With such a shift, the interpreter actually risks potential damage to the
journalist’s face want as a competent professional. In addition, the interpreter changes
‘return the land ownership’ into ‘transfer and give land ownership’. The word ‘return’
indicates that the land has been taken away from the farmers. This negative implication
may put at risk the Prime Minister’s positive image. The translation ‘transfer and give’ does
not reflect the negative connotation. The interpreter thus potentially protects the Prime
Minister’s face with this shift.
156
89. M. 中国的改革是从农村开始的，农村改革是从土地的经营权开始的。农民
的土地是集体所有。我们在改革开始的时候就实行了家庭承包经营的基
本经济制度，就是说，农民拥有对土地的生产和经营自主权，以后这个
权利不断得到延长。现在我可以直接回答你，农民对土地的经营生产自
主权将长期不变，也就是永远不变。
(R16T1)
China’s reform is from countryside start, rural reform is from land’s
management right start. Farmer’s land is collectively owned. We in reform
start’s time already implemented family contract management’s basic
economy system. That is to say, farmer have regard land’s production and
management autonomy right. Since then this right keep get extension. Now I
can directly answer you, farmer regard land’s management production
autonomy right will long term remain not change, that is forever not change.
I. China’s reform started in the countryside. China’s rural reform started with the
right to manage land by farmers. In the countryside land is under collective
ownership. In the early days of reform and opening-up， the first step we
adopted in the countryside was to set up the family contract responsibility
system. Farmers were given the right to manage their land， and such right of
the farmers has been extended time and again. Now I can say directly that the
farmers’ autonomy to manage their land won’t change for a long time.
Actually, it will never change.
The Prime Minister’s does not directly confirm or reject the journalist’s proposed solution
in his reply. He simply states what has been done and what will be done with regard to the
problem. There are a few potentially controversial presumptions in the journalist’s question
(e.g. the solution to the problem is to return the land ownership to farmers) but the Prime
Minister’s tactic is to state what he thinks is relevant and he does not provide the kind of
confirmation which the journalist is seeking. The journalist asks about ‘land ownership and
the land use right’, the Prime Minister replies with words like ‘land production and
management autonomy right’. The different choice of words reflects how the journalist’s
and the Prime Minister’s opinions and interactional goals differ with regard to the same
issue. Although the Prime Minister is claiming to answer the journalist’s question directly,
he actually answers the question according to his perspective rather than the way the
journalist asks. The Prime Minister protects the journalist’s face as well by not picking up
157
the potential disputes. The minister generally seems to be addressing a large audience rather
than the addressee. This shows not only that the interpreter is attending to the other
participant’s face, but that the minister is attending to his addressee’s face as well.
90. J. I was ARD German TV which translate 德国电视一台，二台也有(German TV
Channel 1, Channel 2 also have). About the Constitution I was impressed to see
how little Chinese citizens seem to care for the changes in the Constitution.
Whoever we talked to in the last weeks and months that told as that the
Constitution and the rights and freedoms that it guarantees on paper don’t mean
much to them, as long as the Communist Party the ruling party, consider itself
above the law. So people complaint that in reality even though the Constitution
is more than progressive there is still no rights of assembly, there is still no real
right for freedom to speak and there is no real press freedom. So my question is
what do you, premier Wen, plan to do to make sure that in the future the law is
above the Communist Party rather than today when the Communist Party seems
to be above the law. Thanks.
I.我是德国电视台的记者。我想问您一个关于宪法修订的问题。我看到中国群众对于这次的修订宪
法表示出了极大的关注。Er但是从之前几个星期和几个月，我跟很多人的交谈里，听他们也表示
了这样一种意见，就是说宪法虽然将一些权力和自由写入了宪法，但是在纸头上的东西呢不一定
能够得到这个26 落实到生活当中去。只要中国共产党作为执政的党，认为自己可以凌驾于法律之
上的话呢，这些宪法的条文可能不一定得到很好的实施。虽然宪法条文规定的内容是非常有先进
性的，但是现实的生活当中，很多自由和权利得到了一定的限制，比如说媒体的自由，言论的自
由等等。您觉得将来中国方面应该采取什么措施，让法律凌驾于共产党之上，而不是相反的。
(Q25)
I am German TV station’s journalist. I want to ask you (H) one concerning
constitution amendment’s question. I saw Chinese people with regard to this
amendment constitution showed very huge attention. But previous a few week and
a few month, I with many people’s talk, hear they also expressed this kind one
opinion, that is to say constitution although put some right and freedom written
into constitution, but on paper’s stuff ne not necessarily can get implemented to
this life. As long as China communist party as ruling party, consider self may
above law ne, these constitution’s article may not get very good implementation.
Although constitution article stipulated content is very progressive, but reality life,
26
‘这个/this’ here is not a space deixis. It functions like an auxiliary which indicates a hesitation or a pause.
158
many freedom and right got some restriction, for example media freedom, speech
freedom etc. You (H) feel future China side should adopt what measure, let law
above communist party, not vice versa?
Example 90 contains bald-on-record face-threats to the addressee. It is a strong criticism of
China’s constitution amendment efforts. In addition, it poses a serious challenge to the
interpreter’s face. It is interesting to see how the interpreter coordinates the face work.
At the outset, the German journalist shows that he can speak some Chinese by saying
(presumably to the interpreter) what the Chinese translation of his organization should be.
The interpreter, however, does not use the two possible choices provided by the journalist.
She makes her own decision to translate the name as ‘German TV station’, thus
transforming a specific identity into a generic one. The journalist’s sociality rights are at
stake in this shift. Unlike most journalists, no initial greetings are given by the journalist.
In his pre-statement, the journalist states that very few Chinese people care about the
constitution amendment. The interpreter says Chinese people are paying great attention to
the amendment effort, which is the opposite of what the journalist is stating. There are a
few possibilities for what motivates the interpreter to be unfaithful to the speaker’s
utterances. Firstly, it is possible that it is an error. However, judging from the interpreter’s
performance throughout the corpus, she seems to maintain a very high level of accuracy.
Secondly, she may be misled by the word ‘impressed’. If we are impressed with something,
it generally means that this something is something good rather than something negative.
The interpreter may sense the contradiction caused by the item ‘impressed’ and what
follows and makes a decision to choose the positive tone indicated by ‘impressed’. Thirdly,
face work strategy may motivate the unfaithful interpretation. Being aware of the acute face
threat, the interpreter may choose to protect the addressee’s face and her own face. If we
consider all the mitigations (as identified in the next paragraph) done by the interpreter in
this question, it is very likely that this unfaithful interpretation is part of the face protection
strategy.
There are other shifts made by the interpreter:
1. the shift from ‘whoever’ to ‘many people’;
2. the shift from ‘don’t mean much to them’ to ‘not necessarily can get implemented to
159
life’;
3. the shift from ‘there is still no rights of assembly, there is still no real right for
freedom to speak and there is no real press freedom’ to ‘many freedom and right got
some restriction’;
4. the shift from ‘rather than today when the Communist Party seems to be above the
law,’ to ‘vice versa.’
If we closely examine these shifts, we can find that they mitigate the face threat imposed
by the speaker. These face-threats imposed by the journalist can be called as a macro-FTA,
consisted by the whole utterance. This macro-FTA is distinguished from Brown and
Levinson’s FTA, which corresponds to an individual speech act. The word ‘whoever’
indicates that there is a unanimous negative opinion about the constitution amendment
while ‘many people’ does not imply such unanimity. The word ‘not necessarily’ functions
as a hedge to mitigate the assertion made in the statement. The journalist suggests that
there is no real right of assembly, speech or press freedom, a very strong assertive
accusation. The interpreter does not seem to commit herself to the face-threat and she
changes the strong accusation into a more mitigated expression. ‘Vice versa’ is an ellipsis
to represent ‘the communist party is above the law’. Using ellipsis is another way to
protect the addressee’s face by avoiding repeating what sounds very face-threatening.
In summary, the analysis of larger sequences provides us with a more complete picture of
how the speaker, the addressee and the interpreter engage in face coordination. It appears
that people from different media have different questioning tactics which apply different
face-work strategies. The journalists who represent media which function as the
government’s mouthpiece tend to apply positive politeness and ask the question in a less
face-threatening way. The journalists from foreign media tend to pose more challenging
questions which pose more serious face-threats to the addressee’s positive and negative
face wants. In such cases the interpreter seems to mitigate the face threat imposed on the
addressee. With the mitigation, the interpreter protects her own face too (c.f. Pöllabauer
2004:175). Although she does not play the role of principal (Goffman 1981) of the
utterances, her representation of others’ speech potentially damages her face wants when
she has to interpret very face-threatening questions into Chinese to an addressee who is at
the highest point in the social hierarchy. The minister seems to maintain his positive image
in his replies as most politicians want to project themselves as competent leaders. It appears
160
that all the speakers design their utterances according to the audience they have in mind to
serve, although the influence of the audience varies according to the power relations
between speaker and addressee. The Chinese journalists seem to pose less threatening
questions and attend to the addressee’s positive face wants. In contrast, the foreign
journalists tend to ask more controversial questions, which are normal in press conferences
in Europe and the United States. This is understandable given the fact that hierarchy is
greatly valued in Chinese society whereas the foreign journalists may not be influenced to
the same extent by the Chinese hierarchical culture.
4.5 Summary
The analysis in this chapter has yielded a number of findings. In PF1a (when the interpreter
is interpreting Chinese questions into English), consistent trends are identified in the TT:
reduced deference and interactivity, increased directness and less mitigation. In addition,
the interpreter tends to show distance and detachment from the interpreted utterances. In
PF2b (when the interpreter is interpreting the English questions into Chinese), the striking
feature discovered is that the interpreter replaces unmarked second person references with
their marked honorific alternates, with only two exceptions. As a result, the deference level
is increased. Moreover, the interpreter tends to mitigate the face-threat to her addressee, the
minister by being indirect, adding mitigating devices or by using the conventionally
indirect structure. In this way, indirectness is increased. In PF3c (when the interpreter is
interpreting the Minister’s Chinese replies into English), an increase in first person plural
pronouns and adjectives is identified and this leads to a trend of solidarity. It seems to
suggest that the interpreter identifies more with the minister than with the journalists. The
analysis of the larger sequences (section 4.4) illustrates how each participant is engaging in
face-work in response to the audience they have in mind to serve. The contrast between
detachment and distance in PF1a and the trend of solidarity in PF3a along with the contrast
of reduced deference and strengthened directness in PF1 and the increased deference and
weakened directness in PF3a all seem to suggest that the interpreter’s behaviour is related
to the participation framework and audience design since all the factors remain constant
except the participant roles in the interaction. The evidence also suggests that the interpreter
does not only play an interpreting role but also shows a limited personal agency/advocacy
161
(Wadensjö 1998:41). When the interpreter shows a certain level of solidarity with a
participant of the interaction, it is evidence of violating the ‘non-partisan role’ (Anderson
2002: 213). In addition, it is evidence of interpreting not being ‘invisible’ (Venuti 1995 on
these concepts, cf. Chapter 2 above).
162
CHAPTER FIVE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Chapter 4 has dealt with the measures taken by participants to manage each other’s face in
communication. However, information is also an essential part of communication,
requested or exchanged. The interpreter’s handling of this aspect of communication also
needs to be analyzed to investigate evidence of potential influence of audience design on
the performance of interpreters. As reported in Chapter 2, Sperber and Wilson offer an
account of communication-as-information in terms of the principle of Relevance. A mutual
cognitive environment shared by speakers and hearers is seen as crucial for effective
communication. Sperber and Wilson (1995: 16) point out that ‘a mismatch between the
context envisaged by the speaker and the one actually used by the hearer may result in a
misunderstanding. ’ Such context may include not only ‘information of the immediate
preceding utterances’ but also includes ‘expectation about the future, scientific hypotheses
or religious belief, anecdotal memories, general cultural assumptions, beliefs, about the
mental state of the speaker’ (1995:16). In interpretation events, the speakers and the
eventual recipients are not generally members of the same linguistic and cultural
community. It is very likely that they are constrained by different inferential abilities and
assumptions about the world. As reported in section 3.2.3.2. the interpreters in the press
conferences under study have been instructed to be faithful to the speaker’s utterances
(Zhao 2007, Qian 2008, Sun 2008，Li 2008). In this chapter we will consider such issues as
presupposition and explicitation from a Relevance Theory perspective to investigate the
evidence of speaker and audience interaction in the exchange of information and the
potential influence of audience design on the performance of the interpreters. It should be
noted that qualitative analysis alone is adopted for this purpose. Unlike face management,
qualitative analysis in information management uses larger sequences, therefore, no
separate longer sequences analysis is provided.
5. 1 Explicitation
As it has been discussed (see 2.4.3), explicitation indicates language mediation. It provides
evidence of how interpreters make judgements about what information is to be made
explicit in order to fill in the information gaps for the target audience. In this section we
163
shall examine the parameter of explicitation to study the influence of the audience design
on the interpreters’ information management strategies.
5.1.1 Explicitation in Participation Framework 1
We shall analyse our data according to the Participation Frameworks previously established.
They are reproduced here for convenience.
Speaker
Chinese-speaking journalist
Addressee
the minister;
Auditors
the interpreter and other correspondents and officials sitting
with the minister;
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference and the TV audience (outer/mass audience);
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
PF1: When questions are asked in Chinese
Speaker
Interpreter;
Addressee
the minister;
Auditors
other correspondents and officials sitting with the minister;
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference and the TV audience (outer/mass audience);
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
PF1a : When questions are interpreted from Chinese into English
91. J. 我想问一个有关三农的问题…解决三农问题，仍然是全部工作的重中之重…
二，因为我们人民日报每天都有涉及到三农问题的报道…怎样，您认为怎样
才能根本解决三农问题？
I wish to ask one concerning three agriculture’s question… solving three
agriculture problem, still is whole work’s key among key…Second, because we
people’s daily everyday all have touched/mentioned three agriculture problem’s
report…how you (H) think how can fundamental solve three agriculture problem...
164
I. My question is about er agriculture, rural area and farmers…. these three issues
remain top priority of all our work…Actually People’s Daily carries reports
concerning agriculture, rural area and farmers on a daily basis… My question is what
do you think is the fundamental solution to these problems? (Q5)
In example 91, specification is applied to provide a detailed explanation of a particular
cultural concept regarding ‘三农’/ ‘three agriculture’. ‘Three agriculture’ issues for people
from different backgrounds may imply different meanings. In China, it refers to agriculture,
farmers and the rural areas. The interpreter makes the utterance more comprehensible in TT.
Relevance is identified as ‘a relation between an assumption and a context’ (Sperber and
Wilson 1995: 123). When a context is not shared between the speaker and the hearers, the
intended contextual effect may not take place. In this example, the term ‘三农’/ ‘three
agriculture’ is an effective stimulus because it is mutually manifest to the Chinese users
who share a mutual cognitive environment. It may fail to deliver the same contextual effect
for those who are from a different language and cultural background. From the cost-benefit
perspective, the speaker seems to put in the minimum amount of effort to achieve the
maximum effect by using an abbreviation which is commonly known in China. If we assess
the relevance of the term ‘三农’/‘three agriculture’ to Chinese hearers, we discover that it
fits the two extent-conditions of relevance (ibid: 125) i.e. relevance degree is high when the
contextual effects of an assumption in this context are large and when the processing effort
required in this context is low. However, if we do a similar assessment of the relevance of
the term to those hearers who are from a different background, we may find the opposite
result i.e. the contextual effects are low in this context while the processing efforts are large.
As we can see from PF1, the addressee shares mutual manifestness with the speaker
(Chinese-speaking journalist) while the auditors who actually rely on the interpretation do
not share such manifestness. Therefore when the interpreter adopts a strategy of
explicitation with this term, she is actually following the principle of relevance by offering
adequate contextual effects for the audience. The use of an explicitation strategy responds
to what Gutt believes about how translation should be done: ‘it should be expressed in such
a manner that it yields the intended interpretation without putting the audience to
unnecessary processing effort’(1991:102). As a result, the explicit interpretation increases
the contextual effect and reduces the processing effort by filling in the omitted information.
It is interesting to observe that the interpreter does not rigidly replace ‘三农’/’three
165
agriculture’ with its full representation in every instance of its occurrence. The interpreter
uses ‘these three issues’ and ‘these three problems’ as a less time-consuming reference for
the more wordy interpretation. Explicitation as a device can facilitate the comprehension of
an audience from a different background. There is however a negative aspect of
explicitation in the context of interpreting. Unlike translation, where the translators have
more options to make up for cultural distance such as footnotes and endnotes, the
interpreter does not enjoy such a variety of compensation tactics due to the time constraints.
Explicitation is almost an exclusive method for the interpreter to bridge the cultural gap. As
interpreters (including consecutive interpreters) are usually trained and required not to take
more time than the speaker, applying explicitation increases the risk of breaking the
interpreter’s time allocation. The above example shows how the interpreter tries to find a
balance between filling in the absent information for her intended audience and being
economical in so doing.
92. J. 您对三农问题的关注，比如说去年您为农民熊德明讨公道的事经新华社报道
后，掀起了追讨民工工资的高潮，但是全国并没有很多的人像熊德明那样有
这么好的运气。所以我们说如果群众有了困难得不到解决…
you (H) regarding three agriculture issues’ concern, for example last year you (H)
for farmer Xiong Deming ask justice thing through Xinhua News Agency report after,
across nation invoke for farmer worker ask salary’s boom but nationwide not many
people like Xiong Deming such good luck. So we say if people have difficulty can’t
is resolved…
I. the e:: questions relating to agriculture, the rural areas and farmers and also last year,
you helped a particular farmer worker named Xiong Deming to get back her wage
arrears and this has led to (.) a real boom of getting back unpaid wages for farmer
workers throughout the country but I have to say that many people are not as lucky as
Mrs. Xiong Deming. Sometimes they encounter problems and grievances that they
can not resolve by themselves… (Q8)
The choice of words used by the Chinese journalist illustrates some signs of indirectness
such as ‘ask justice’, ‘ask salary’ and ‘difficulty’. The interpreter seems to be very direct
and explicit in decoding these terms to the TT that ‘justice’ means ‘wage arrears’, ‘ask
salary’ is ‘getting back unpaid wages’ and ‘difficulty’ is ‘problems and grievances’. These
166
ST euphemisms are sufficient stimuli for the Chinese hearers who share the same cognitive
environment to derive the speaker’s intended cognitive effect. The interpreter’s explicit
terms have more negative connotations. ‘Justice’ sounds very vague and positive in tone
while ‘wage arrears’ sounds more trivial than ‘justice’ and it carries negative connotations.
In this context, ‘asking justice’ does not mean ‘justice’ in general but it has a very specific
association with ‘wage arrears’. ‘An individual’s cognitive environment is the set of
assumptions that are available to him.’(Sperber and Wilson 1995:46). Through the strategy
of explicitation the interpreter seems to help build a cognitive environment for those
auditors who do not have immediate access to the set of assumptions made by the speaker.
The question asked here touches upon an emerging social problem (farmer worker’s rights)
and it requires some knowledge about China’s population control system or the dual system
existing between the urban and rural areas to be able to understand what farmer workers are
and why it becomes such a significant issue that the Prime Minister himself took some
action to help. Although these ‘farmer workers’ now migrate to the cities to become wage
earners, their social status remains that of ‘farmer’. In order to introduce a topic which is
presumably unfamiliar to (most of) the English-speaking audience, the interpreter has to
make the ST more accessible to the auditors without making the TT take much longer than
the ST. The interpreter uses ‘farmer worker’ instead of ‘farmer’ because farmers in China
generally do not receive salaries since they work for themselves. The ‘farmer workers’,
however, now work in cities and do receive wages but currently have a problem of wage
arrears. The specification of the particular group of farmers helps prepare the audience for
the coming ‘wage arrears’ issue. By indicating that ‘difficulty’ means ‘problems and
grievances’ in this context, the interpreter indicates how people think of the ‘wage arrears’
issue. The translation suggests that the ‘difficulty’ is caused by some wrong-doing. From
the above example, it appears that being aware of a cultural gap triggers the use of
explicitation to facilitate the perception of the question. It seems that the explicit measures
risk more face-threat (see above, section 4.1.5) although it may not actually make the Prime
Minister feel that his positive face want is being compromised, given the fact that the
interpreter is relaying the message in English for the benefit of the English-speaking
audience (the auditors) instead of the addressee (the Prime Minister). The fact that the
interpreter does these FTAs shows that she is unlikely to regard the Prime Minister as her
primary receiver.
167
There is an omission in example 92 in the first line. The journalist emphasized that the
boom in ‘farmer workers’ asking for unpaid wages took place after Xinhua News Agency
reported the event in which the Prime Minister helped a particular ‘farmer worker’ to get
back her wages. It appears as if Xinhua News Agency is playing the crucial role of
facilitating the solution of the problem instead of the Prime Minister. When the interpreter
omits the Xinhua News Agency in TT, the spotlight moves to the Prime Minister’s
contribution in solving the problem.
In this example, explicitation does not only function as an effective information
management tactic, but it also delivers certain face management effects. Face management
is not the focus in this section (see 4.1.4 Example 37). The explicitation of vague terms by
the interpreter contributes to the cognitive processing of the information by the auditors.
93. J. 每当我们有经济困难的时候，中央都大力支持...
every time when we have economic difficulty time, central government all
big strength support….
I. each time Hong Kong encountered economic difficulties the central government
would extend vigorous support…. (Q11)
The use of ‘we’ can be open to more than one interpretation. It may include the speaker, the
addressee and auditors. It may also exclude the addressee, the auditors but include those
who the speaker represents. In this case, it seems the journalist is talking on behalf of the
Hong Kong people by the use of ‘we’. Such inherent ambiguity of ‘we’ is made clear by
the interpreter’s explicitation strategy. By specifying that ‘we’ refers to Hong Kong, the
interpreter may make the reception of what is included in ‘we’ more effortless in a multiparty interaction. In addition, with the shift the interpreter appears to adopt a detached and
distant stance towards the utterance. Instances of the interpreter taking a detached and more
distant stance when she interprets Chinese questions into English can be observed in 4.1.3
Example 19-23. It should be noted that whether the shift is due to face or information
management, in both cases it is audience-oriented.
168
5.1.2 Explicitation in Participation Framework 2
Explicitation is not a strong feature in PF2. This, in itself, provides evidence that the
interpreters are now designing for the Chinese Ministers and they no longer need to make
adjustments for relevance although the questions are asked in English these questions are
about Chinese policies. Therefore, these questions are compatible with the cognitive
environment of the minister. However, there are some instances of optional explicitation.
Speaker
English-speaking journalist
Addressee
the minister
Auditors
the interpreter and other journalists and officials sitting with the
minister;
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference; the TV audience (outer/mass audience);
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
PF2: Questions asked in English
Speaker
Interpreter;
Addressee
the minister
Auditors
Other Chinese correspondents and officials sitting with the
minister;
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference; TV audience (outer/mass audience);
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
PF2b: Questions interpreted from English into Chinese
94 J. ……with many important trading partners urging China to adopt a more flexible
exchange rate.
I.……中国很多重要的贸易伙伴呢都敦促中国要采取更为灵活的人民币汇率机制
.. ...China many important trading partner all urge China need adopt more
flexible
Renminbi exchange rate system.
(Q20)
169
95. J. The first is that at the end of the Six-Party Talks which has just happened in
Beijing on the North Korea’s nuclear programs…..
I.第一个就是我们看到最近在北京举行的朝核问题六方会谈第二轮会谈已经结束了….
First is that we saw recently in Beijing hold Korean nuclear issue Six-party talk
second round talk already concluded….
(Q27)
Examples 94 and 95 serve as evidence for optional explicitation. It needs to be pointed out
that the explicitation here may be motivated more by trying to sound natural in Chinese.
The addition of ‘Renminbi’ to the ‘exchange rate’ and the addition of ‘second round talk’ to
the ‘Six-Party Talks’ may be motivated by how such issues are normally referred to by the
Chinese government or Chinese media. Adopting a more familiar term may help facilitate
information processing. It suggests that now the interpreter is designing for the addressee
and she is adopting the Prime Minister’s preferred terms. This can be explained by Bell’s
‘convergence’ and Spencer-Oatey’s sociality rights (i.e. being a loyal employee).
96. J. I wonder if you could clarify exactly what those means could be?
I. 那么您能不能像我们解释一下什么样的方式就算是非和平的方式？
Then you (H) can or can not to us explain just what kind way count as non
peaceful means?
(Q21)
Here ‘those means’ refers back to what has been mentioned in the co-text. The interpreter is
making explicit what is implied by the co-text, thus improving cohesion and therefore ease
of processing.
5.1.2.1 Summary
The relative lack of evidence of explicitation in PF2 forms a contrast with the explicitation
which is a distinctive feature in PF1 and PF3 (see 5.1.3). This, in itself, provides evidence
that the interpreter is now designing for the Chinese Ministers and she no longer needs to
make adjustments for relevance because even the questions are asked in English but these
170
questions are about Chinese policies, so these questions are compatible with the cognitive
environment of the minister. She would only need to make adjustments if the questioners
used culture-specific references in English.
5.1.3 Explicitation in Participation Framework 3 (Replies)
Speaker
the minister
Addressee
the journalist who asks the question;
Auditors
the interpreter, other government officials sitting with the
speaker and the rest of the correspondents
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference; TV audience (outer/mass audience).
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
PF3: Replies provided by minister
Speaker/Mediator
Interpreter
Addressee
the correspondent who asks the question;
Auditors
the minister; other correspondents and officials sitting with the
minister;
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference; TV audience (outer/mass audience).
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
PF3c: Replies interpreted from Chinese into English
97.M.对今年的工作，我始终保持清醒的头脑，安不忘危，治不忘乱，要有忧患意识，看到前进中存在
的困难和问题。我们工作中最重要的是保持经济平稳较快发展，最困难的是农业、农村、农民
问题，最关心的是涉及群众利益的事情，最根本的是改革、创新和奋进。面对困难，我们有信
心、有办法、有希望，一定能经受住新的考验，决不辜负人民的期望。
Regarding this year’s work, I always keep sober mind, security not forget
danger, order not forget chaos, need to have worry awareness, see in
advancing existing difficulty and problem. We work among most important is
maintain economic stable and fast development, most difficult is agriculture
and rural area, farmer issue. Most interested is concerning public interest
171
issue, most fundamental is reform, innovate and progress. Facing difficulty,
we have confidence, have ways, have hopes, definitely can stand new test,
never fail people’s expectation.
I. In terms of the work of the government for this year, we must have a sober
mind. In security, we should never forget about the dangers and in times of
peace we should always be alert to the potentials for chaos. That is we should
always keep high alert and on guard against the potential risks and problems
and clearly understand the various difficulties and problems that may crop up
in our way ahead. So the most important aspect of our work is to maintain
stable and relatively fast economic growth. The most difficult issues we have
to grapple with relate to agriculture, the rural areas and farmers. What I am
most concerned about are those matters and issues that bear on the interest,
vital interests of our people and our most fundamental response to these
problems is through reform, innovation and forging ahead despite difficulties.
So we have the confidence, the means and we have the optimism that we will
surely stand all new tests. And never fail the expectations of the Chinese
people. (R7T2)
Example 97 illustrates a very common feature of Chinese syntax where the subject pronoun
is omitted (c.f. above, section 4.1.3). It is seen from the above that ‘we’ is added constantly
to fill in the missing subject. It is important to highlight here that, although there is an
obligatory shift, the addition of ‘we’ is not obligatory. The sentence can be interpreted
without making the subject explicit. ‘We’ is one of the options27 at the interpreter’s disposal.
It is very obvious that the interpreter is making an effort to better manage the information
flow. In the TT, the first sentence is organized in a very concise way with dense
information. The interpreter has broken this one unit into three sentence-like statements.
For each sentence, she adds in the subject and she adds in linking devices such as ‘that is’
to guide the hearers through the information flow.
The other options that do not require the addition of ‘we’ can be passive form or use the syntactic structure starting with
‘there be…’. Take ‘要有忧患意识/need to have worry awareness’ for example, it can be interpreted as ‘A sense of high
alert should be kept.’
27
172
In the first part of the example, the Prime Minster uses a few Chinese idioms. Chinese
idioms are often used as a polished stylistic and rhetorical device. Many such idioms reflect
old Chinese style28. They are very concise with rich cultural connotations and reference.
The use of such idioms showcases a sound knowledge of Chinese literature and rhetoric
and such knowledge is highly regarded in China. The interpreter in this case does not only
make the words more explicit, she actually rearranges the information flow by changing the
sentence structures and adding in a linking word. When she breaks a long sentence into a
few short sentences with explicit subjects, it should be much easier for the hearer to process
the intended meaning from the minister. The rhetorical and stylistic features of the ST may
be lost due to the explicitation of the words and sentence structure but the interpreting
strategy should facilitate processing of the information.
It should be pointed out that making the subject of the sentence explicit by adding ‘we’ has
an associated effect in face management (see section 4.1.3).
The reply in 97 consists of three sentences. We now examine the second sentence. As can
be observed from the example, the second sentence of the reply is actually a long sentence,
with a few parallel phrases. The subject of the sentence appears at the beginning and is
followed by many parallel phrases with no subject. On close examination, it can be found
that it is rather hard to remember what the subject is for such a long chunk of information.
The interpreter seems to fill in all the omitted information. She turns each parallel phrase
into a clause with a subject. It is important to notice that the added subjects are not the same.
In contrast, the entire added subjects in the first sentence are ‘we’. In the second sentence,
the added subjects include ‘The most difficult issues we have to grapple with’, ‘what I am
most concerned about’, ‘our most fundamental response to these problems’. With more
explicit subjects, the interpreter guides the hearers through the information flow. This
shows that the interpreter is making an effort to add in the most appropriate subject to make
the information processing easier for the hearers while ensuring maximum cognitive effect.
98.M.在快速发展的过程中又出现了一些新的矛盾和问题，主要是投资规模过大,
能源、运输和重要原材料供求关系紧张...我以为这次考验不轻于去年
28
Old Chinese puts an emphasis on the rhetoric and stylistic aspects while modern Chinese is considered to be plain
Chinese with much less such emphasis.
173
SARS的考验。
At fast-developing process again emerged some new conflict and problem,
mainly is investment scale too big, energy, transport and major raw material
supply demand relationship nervous…. I think this test no less than last year’s
SARS’s test…
I. new problems and imbalances keep cropping up in the process of rapid
development such as excessive investment scale, shortages in energy,
transportation capacity and important raw materials... And this test is no less
severe than the SARS episode we had to deal with last year. (R8T2)
In Example 98, the interpreter uses specification to provide more details. In the ST,
‘conflict’ and ‘supply demand relationship nervous’ are a very indirect way of expressing
something negative. Those who share the mutual cognitive environment know that
‘conflict’ means ‘imbalances’ and ‘relationship nervous’ means ‘shortage’. Those who are
not familiar with such expressions may require additional cognitive processing. The last
part of the example provides evidence of optional explicitation. In the optional explicitation
‘we’ is added again.
99.M.我就想起60年前，毛泽东主席向全党推荐过一篇郭沫若的文章，《甲申三百年祭》。他谆谆告
诫我们不要犯胜利使人骄傲的错误，不要犯生活腐化的错误…第一，就是要建立教育、法制和
监督的防御和反对腐败的体系…坚决处理贪污腐败分子，坚决纠正各种不正之风...但更多的是
对政府的期待…
I think of 60 years ago. Mao Zedong Chairman to whole party recommended
one article Guo Moruo’s article Jiashen 300 hundred years memorial. He
clearly warn us not to make victory make people proud’s mistake and not make
life corrupt’s mistake….…. Firstly, that is establish education, legislation and
supervision’s defence and counter-corruption’s system…. Firmly deal with
corrupt elements, firmly correct various not correct style…. But more is to
government’s expectation.
I. I remember on the last year of Jiasheng which was 60 years ago Chairman Mao
recommended that all the party members read an article written by Mr. Guo
Moruo titled On the Third Centenary of the Demise of the Ming Dynasty.
Chairman Mao admonished that the entire party not to commit the mistake of
becoming arrogant and adopt depraved lifestyles following our victory…Firstly
174
we will endeavour to put in place a corruption prevention and punishment system
that includes education, legal system and supervision…we will firmly investigate
into and punish corrupt officials. And we will make firm efforts to reverse the
unhealthy conducts on the part of officials…. But what I see first and foremost
are the expectations that people have on our work. (R12T1)
Example 99 contains much culture-loaded information. The interpreter seems to make
efforts to present the message with less cultural allusions. The concept of ‘Jiashen’ is very
likely to be a rather alien way to label years for a foreign audience and even for young
Chinese people. The interpreter connects Jiashen with ‘60 years ago’ to make the ST sound
more relevant and explicit. The Prime Minister makes a link here to bring out the topic he
wishes to discuss but the link or equivalence between ‘last Jiashen year’ and ‘60 years ago’
is hidden and implied. This knowledge is assumed to be shared with the audience. The
interpreter seems to adopt her interpreting strategy based on her assumption of what
assumptions the audience shares with the speaker in line with the Principle of Relevance.
She seems to identify the need to make the implied link more explicit. In addition, the
interpreter actually decodes the article title first to make it more comprehensible to the
English audience. It will be very difficult for people from a different background to be able
to relate ‘300 years memorial’ to ‘The demise of Qing Dynasty’. The speaker is following a
very classic/elegant style of rhetoric by quoting the cultural and historical allusions to
introduce his topics. Using such a rhetorical style reflects class, good education and a sound
knowledge of classic literature and history. It is very common to see the senior leadership
use poetic quotes, cultural and historical allusions to impress his/her audience. This
example provides more evidence of explicitation by specifying that ‘deal with’ means
‘investigate into and punish’, that ‘corrupt elements’ are ‘corrupt officials’. There is more
evidence of optional explicitation in the last part of this example. The interpreter seems to
make additions to achieve some emphatic effect. Such optional explicitation can be found
in examples 99-103 below.
100.M.过去的一年确实是很不寻常的一年，在党中央领导下，经过全国人民的努力，抗击非典取得重
大胜利…特别是在困难中学习的民族…
175
Past one year is very extraordinary one year. At the Party Central leadership,
through whole nation people’s effort, combat SARS achieved major
success….especially in difficulty middle learning’s nation…
I. Last year indeed has been most extraordinary for China. Under the leadership of
the CPC Central Committee and with the concerted efforts of the entire Chinese
population, we won the important victory against the SARS…especially
learning from problems and difficulties…. (R7T1)
It is observed from Example 100 that the interpreter makes some implicit information
explicit. ‘Past one year is very extraordinary one year’ is open to more than one
interpretation. It may mean that last year is an extraordinary year for the world or for the
world economy or other subjects. The interpreter makes it very explicit that the comment is
strictly applied to China. The second instance we examine is when the minister uses ‘Party
central leadership’. This is a very common way to refer to CPC Central Committee in
Chinese but making it explicit may help hearers from a different background to know
which organization the speaker refers to. However, in her explicitation effort, the
interpreter uses an abbreviation i.e. CPC (the Communist Party of China). This may be
motivated by the fact that the length of the Chinese form is much shorter than the complete
form of its English translation. There are four other incidents of explicitation made by the
interpreter. They are all optional and they seem to conform to the Relevance Principle by
easing the processing of the intended information by hearers.
101.M.中国的崛起是中国多少代人的梦想...中国和平崛起的要义在什么地方？第一，中国和平崛起就
是要充分利用世界和平的大好时机...
China’s rise is China many generations’ dream...China peace rise essential
meaning where? Firstly, China peace rise is fully exploit world peace good
opportunity...
I. The rise of China and its regeneration are the dreams of Chinese people of
many generations. What are the connotations of China’s peaceful rise? Let
me make the following points. Firstly, in promoting China’s peaceful rise….
(R9T1)
176
In this example, the instance where the interpreter adds the sense of ‘regeneration’ to ‘the
rise of China’ will be discussed in section 5.3 Presupposition. The interpreter adds in ‘Let
me make the following points’, a linking device to give a clue to the hearer about what is
coming. This guides the hearer through the information flow. In the last instance, with the
addition of ‘in’, the relationship of the sentence seems to be more explicit and easy to
process.
102. M. 从我上任的那一天起就确立了三个目标...
From I take office that day established three goal....
I. From the very first year when I assumed my office... (R10T2)
The addition made by the interpreter seems to be used just for the emphatic effect.
103.M.有人说这个安排是一份大礼。我说，依我看，真正的大礼是我带来了中央新一代领导集体坚定
的决心，我们将毫不动摇地坚持一国两制、港人治港、高度自治的方针，坚持香港基本法。
Some people say this arrangement is a huge gift, I say, according to I see, the
real huge gift is I brought central government new generation leadership firm
determination. We will unswervingly uphold one country, two system, Hong
Kong people govern Hong Kong, high autonomy’s principle, uphold Hong
Kong basic law.
I. I mentioned that some people believed that CEPA was a big gift I had brought
to Hong Kong but I believed that the true big gift that was brought to Hong
Kong was the message of firm resolve of the new collective central leadership
in China, to unswervingly follow the one-country-two-systems policy, Hong
Kong people administering Hong Kong, and high degree autonomy and our
commitment to comply with the basic law of the Hong Kong SAR. (R11T1)
In the data, there is one kind of explicitation which restores what had been omitted due to
previous intra-textual information. Using ‘CEPA’ instead of ‘this arrangement’ may reduce
the cognitive effort of the hearers as it reduces the processing time involved for the hearer
in remembering what ‘this arrangement’ means. However it should be noted that although
‘CEPA’ is more explicit than ‘this arrangement,’ it may not be explicit enough some
journalists who do not have any previous knowledge about ‘CEPA.’ The interpreter tends
177
to make implicit information such as who is the actor and where the action is happening
very explicit. This can be observed when the interpreter adds in ‘Hong Kong’ to ‘the big
gift’ and ‘our commitment’ to ‘the basic law of Hong Kong SAR’. The interpreter adds in
the conjunction ‘but’ to indicate the coming contrast and this helps prepare the hearer for
the coming information.
104.M.我们政府还要依法行政，建设法治政府。只有依法行政，建设法治政府，才能依法治国，建设法治
国家。….第三，我们要接受各方面的监督，包括人民代表大会的监督，政协的民主监督，听
取各方面的意见，包括社会舆论和人民群众的意见。
We government also want according to law administer, build rule of law
government. Only according to law administer, build rule of law government so
can according to law manage the state, build rule of law country.…. Thirdly, we
want accept all parties’ supervision including people representative congress’
supervision, political consultation’s democratic supervision, listen all parties
advice including social opinion and public’s advice.
I. The government must administer the country according according to law and
establish a government under the rule of law. Only when the government abides
by the law and exercises its administration by the law, can we have country
under the rule of law….Thirdly, the government must be put under the
supervision of our people including through the National People’s Congress and
democratic supervision through CPPCC. The governments must listen to the
views of various quarters including public views from various people. (R10T2)
In example 104 above, it can be observed that ‘we government’ as the subject of the first
sentence is omitted in the second sentence. The interpreter breaks the long chunk into two
sentences and adds the subject again to make what is the subject more explicit. This
example illustrates a very common sentence structure in Chinese. A long sentence starts
with a subject and follows with a few parallel elements which have no subjects. The
explicitation strategy has made processing of such sentences easier.
105.M.第一，宏观调控的基础还不稳固，粮食增产、农民增收的困难加大，特别是生产资料价格上涨的幅
度较大。
178
First, macro-control’s foundation still not stable, grain increase produce,
farmer increase income’s difficulty add big, especially is production material
price increase level rather big.
I. First, the foundation for macro-regulation needs to be consolidated further. We
face considerable difficulties in further increasing grain output and farmers
income. In particular, because of the soaring prices for capital goods, it is more
difficult for us to achieve these goals in terms of grain output and increasing
farmers’ income.
(R1T1)
Here ST does not make clear the link between ‘grain increase produce, farmer increase
income’s’ and ‘production material price increase level rather big’. The addition of a
conjunction ‘because of’ makes the sentential relationship more explicit and it becomes
easy to follow the logic of the sentence. The interpreter repeated the previous part of the
sentence to make sure that the cause-effect relationship is easily accessible to the audience.
106.M.固定资产投资的规模极有可能反弹；煤、电、油、运依然紧张。…这就反映出经济生活这根
弦绷得还很紧。
Fixed asset investment’s scale very likely rebound. Coal, power, petrol,
transportation still tense…This reflected economic life this string still very tight.
I. Moreover, investment growth in fixed assets may well pick up again. Coal,
electricity, oil and transportation are still in short supply. In the economy, the
supply chain is over stretched.
(R1T1)
Expressions such as ‘still tense’ and ‘this string still very tight’ used in the ST are rather
vague and ambiguous. Such vagueness and ambiguity may make it difficult to understand.
The interpreter seems to express what is implied in a clear and plain way.
5.1.3.1 Summary
From the above evidence and analysis, it appears that explicitation devices are often used
based on the interpreter’s assumption of what the speaker and hearers share as mutually
manifest and what is not shared. The focus of the analysis is on cultural explicitation as
179
well as some instances of optional explicitation. The interpreter seems to make what is
ambiguous and implied explicit. She fills in missing information for elements which are
culturally specific. She seems to rearrange the sentence structure to make links more
explicit and easier to process. This is evidence that the interpreters are not being ‘invisible’
(Venuti 1995) and playing a mere ‘interpreting’ role (Wadensjö 1998 and Anderson 2002
c.f. Chapter 2). The strategy of explicitation increases the contextual effects for the Englishspeaking audience and reduces the processing efforts required. There are also times when
the interpreter uses explicitation for emphatic effects. It seems the interpreter is making an
effort to manage the information flow and make it easier for the hearers to process. This
explicitation strategy seems to have some associated face management effect. When words
are made explicit, they may carry more face-threat.
5.2 Presupposition
As indicated by Yule (2003:25), presupposition is ‘something that the speaker assumes to
be the case prior to making an utterance’. The translation shift in presupposition reflects the
different assumptions of the speakers. This section focuses on the shifts that change what
the speaker presumes to be assumed.
The Participation Framework is useful for understanding the analysis that follows so it is
reproduced here.
107.J.谢谢孔泉发言人给我的机会提供问题。中国经济在快速发展出现了很多社会问题，包括贫富
差距，解决三农问题是您最大的愿望，可是有专家说，除非加强农民土地使用权或者还给农
民土地产权，三农问题可能很难得到解决。您认为把土地产权还给农民是可能的吗？
Thank Kong Quan Spokesperson give me chance provide question. China
economy at rapid development appeared many social problem, including poor
rich gap. Solve three agriculture problem is you (H) biggest wish but have
expert say, unless strengthen farmer land use right or return farmer land
ownership, three agriculture problem may very hard get solve. You (H) think
make land ownership return to farmer is possible ma?
I. I would like to thank the spokesperson for giving this opportunity of asking
questions. Good morning, Premier. My question is a lot of social problems have
cropped up in the course of rapid economic development in China. One of them
180
is the wealth gap. To address problems facing agriculture,rural areas and
farmers is top on your agenda. But some people are saying unless farmers are
granted the right to use land, or they are transferred the ownership of the land，it
is impossible to solve the problems they face. Do you think it is possible to grant
farmers the land use right or give them the ownership of land? (Q16)
The word ‘expert’ suggests that the speaker is quoting an authoritative source. It
presupposes that the quote is reliable because the person (i.e. expert) who proposes the
suggestion has a professional in-depth knowledge in the field. The shift from ‘expert’ to
‘some people’ removes the authoritative nature and the reliability of the quote. Such
authoritative presupposition is very important for the journalist as he uses the views of the
‘expert’ as part of his question. ‘Some people’ can be anybody who has a view on the three
agriculture issue.
With regard to the ‘strengthen farmer land use right/farmer land ownership’, the verbs
used by the speaker and the interpreter triggers different presuppositions. As pointed out by
Yule, (2003: 27) the possessive construction is a linguistic indicator of existential
presupposition. ‘farmer land use right’ is a hidden possessive form 29 and they are lexical
presupposition. ‘strengthen’ presupposes that farmers have had ‘land use right’ prior to the
utterance and ‘return’ presupposes that farmers owned the land before and the land was
taken away from them. Such presuppositions can be controversial. With the verbs used by
the interpreter, ‘grant’ and ‘transfer’, there is no indication that the land use right and land
ownership exist previously. These two verbs do not suggest there is a connection with the
current situation and the past in the way ‘strengthen’ and ‘return’ do.
108. J. 一些代表委员对我们国家经济发展过热提出了不同的看法…
some deputies concerning we countries economic development overheating
raised different views…
I. some deputies and members voiced different opinions as to whether the
Chinese economy is overheating.
29
(Q8)
The possessive constructions are hidden because the possessive part is omitted. Such hidden possessive forms are very
common in Chinese.
181
An existential presupposition is triggered by a definite description ‘overheating’. It
presupposes the existence of overheating in the economy. It is very clear that with the shift
made by the interpreter, a fact assumed by the speaker is presented as questionable and
undecided. The ST suggests that many people have different views on the problem of
overheating but the TT indicates that the different views focuses on whether the Chinese
economy is overheating. It serves as evidence that the interpreter is not just following the
guiding principle of ‘faithful, accurate and complete’. It is possible that the shift is not
motivated by her personal perspective but what she regards as the government’s position on
this issue. This may be explained by her sociality rights of being a loyal employee.
109. J. 所以我们说如果群众有了困难得不到解决，就可能选择上访和信访…
So we say if people have difficulty can not be resolved, then may choose visit
authorities and petition….
I. sometimes they encounter problems and grievances that they can not resolve by
themselves. Their last recourse is (.) to petition to higher authorities or visit
these authorities.
(Q8)
Example 109 was analyzed in 5.1 Explicitation. In 109, ‘difficulty’ does not contain the
presupposition indicated by ‘grievances’. However, judging from the context, ‘grievances’
are the reason why people want to petition the higher authorities. It appears that the
interpreter changes the presupposition of the ST to make TT more explicit for the hearers.
110. J. I wonder if you could clarify exactly what those means could be? If it comes to
a broader conflict with the United States...
I.那么您能不能像我们解释一下什么样的方式就算是非和平的方式？如果中国遇到了一个范围更为
广阔的冲突，美国也参加进来了….
Then you (H) can or can not to us explain just what kind way count as nonpeaceful means? If China meets a broad conflict, the United States also
participated…
(Q21)
182
Here the ST considers a possible conflict between China and the United States. The TT on
the other hand, by including the word ‘also’, presupposes that a possible conflict is between
China and some countries, the United States being just one of the countries involved. Such
a change of presupposition does have a mitigating effect (see 4.2.4). This indicates that
presupposition does not only have a link with explicitation but may also have an effect on
face management.
111. J. But he also clearly indicated opposition to the Taiwan’s plans to hold a
referendum next week…. Do you think it will change or influence the outcome
of the elections and the referendum in Taiwan next week?
I.他也明确表示反对台湾将于下个星期举行的所谓公投…是不是您认为他们明确阐明了立场就会
影响台湾将于下个星期举行的选举和公投的结果呢？
He also clearly express oppose Taiwan will at next week hold so-called
referendum…Is or is not you (H) think they clearly expressed position will
influence Taiwan will at next week hold election and referendum result ne?
(Q 24)
In this example, the same word ‘referendum’ has two different interpretations i.e.
所谓公投/‘so-called referendum’ and 公投/‘referendum’. As is very easy to see, the
distinction in the presuppositions is indicated by the two interpretations.
The first
interpretation, ‘so-called referendum’ positions the speaker as not recognizing that the
referendum is valid, legal or carries any authority. Such a presupposition is not what the ST
speaker intend to include as the word ‘referendum’ suggests allowing the people to decide
based on a direct popular vote. Generally, a referendum carries its authority and validity
because it is a democratic way of making decisions that are in the public’s interest. In fact,
the referendum mentioned by the journalist is often referred to as ‘so-called referendum’ by
the Chinese media/Chinese government. Clearly in this instance the interpreter shows her
distance from the speaker/the journalist’s perspective. She shows her orientation towards
the minister/the government. As suggested by Bell, ‘audience design is generally
manifested in a speaker shifting her style to be more like that of the person she is talking to
– this is ‘convergence’ (2001:143). It appears that the interpreter is showing her
convergence towards her addressee, i.e. the minister, by adopting a term which is preferred
by her addressee. It is a question asked in English and it is a challenging question. The
183
interpreter seems to adjust the interpretation to suit the Minister’s stance. There is evidence
of the solidarity shown by the interpreter towards the minister in section 4.3.2. In addition,
there is evidence in section 4.1.4 (pronoun choice where the interpreter appears to take a
distancing and detached position towards the utterances of the journalists. It appears to be a
trend that the interpreter takes a distancing, detached position towards the utterances of the
journalists while adopting a solidarity position toward the minister’s utterances. However,
it should be pointed out that the interpreter in Example 111 interprets faithfully in the
second instance when the referendum is mentioned again.
Apart from the above examples, Example 90 in section 4.4 also provides evidence of a shift
of presupposition. For reasons of space, the example is not reproduced here.
When the interpreter is interpreting in PF3 (minister’s replies from Chinese into English), a
change in presupposition does not seem to form a trend. There are cases of cultural
preuspposition such as ‘three agriculture issue’. In China, this term can refer to three
different agriculture issues from other countries. The interpreter seems to make an attempt
to make sure the presupposition that is specific to Chinese culture is made explicit to avoid
ambiguity. The fact that there is a lack of evidence for a trend in shifts of presupposition in
PF3 shows that the interpreters seem to take the same position as the minister.
5.2.1 Summary
From the examples in this section on presupposition, evidence is found that the interpreters
do more than just provide ‘faithful, accurate and complete’ translations as they do change
what the speakers assume to be assumed. As noted above, this suggests that the interpreters
are not being ‘invisible’ (cf. Venuti 1995 and see also 3.2.3.4) and they are playing a
limited role of ‘advocacy’ (See also 3.2.3.4). Although the examples cited in 5.2 are not
large in number, this is due to the fact that the shift in presupposition does not show a trend
in PF3 and PF3 accounts for the major part of the press conference data in this study. From
the limited evidence, the interpreter seems to occasionally make such shifts to orient
towards the government stance or government preferred terms. This can be explained by
the interpreter’s sociality right (c.f. Spencer-Oatey’s sociality rights) to present an image as
184
a loyal employee. This can also be explained by what Bell called ‘convergence’ (See
Example 111).
185
CHAPTER SIX FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION
6.1 Summary of aims, objectives and methods of study
Before we start discussing the findings of the thesis, it is appropriate to provide a reminder
of what the broad aim of the thesis was (as stated in Chapter One):
It is the contention of this thesis that audience design, that is the adjustment of a
speaker’s output to suit a particular participation framework, is involved in
interpreters’ performance (in the press conferences studies).
In order to achieve the aims of the thesis, we have constructed a corpus of interpreted
televised press conferences that is held to be representative of such events (see Chapter 3).
These authentic data (Chinese and English) were then transcribed for analysis purposes and
instances of non-obligatory shifts were identified. The parameters selected to investigate
these shifts for evidence of audience design included terms of address and deference (4.1.1
and 4.1.2), personal reference (4.1.3), indirectness and directness (4.1.4 and 4.1.5),
explicitation (5.1) and presupposition (5.2). The analysis has been carried out under two
headings, reflecting two distinct perspectives: face management (Chapter 4) and
information management (Chapter 5). Both quantitative and qualitative analysis methods
are applied where appropriate. The theoretical framework draws on the fields of
interpreting studies, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics. Through the analysis we endeavour to
ascertain if the interpreters in the data are as accurate and faithful as they are thought to be
and to explore the evidence of the potential influence of audience design on the
performance of the interpreters.
6.2 Findings of the study
In the analysis of face management and information management, we have examined the
parameters (as listed above under 6.1) in the three sets of Participation Frameworks that
characterise the press conference event (i.e. PF1/ Chinese-speaking journalists asking
questions in Chinese and PF1a/interpreter interpreting from Chinese into English;
PF2/English-speaking journalists asking questions in English and PF2b/interpreter
interpreting from English into Chinese; PF3/Chinese minister replying in Chinese and
186
PF3c/the interpreter interpreting from Chinese into English). In order to answer the
questions raised in the aims and objectives, we have compared the ST and TT in each
framework (i.e. PF1, 2, 3 and PF1a, 2b, 3c). Consistent trends have been identified
corresponding to changes in the PFs.
6.2.1 Findings under Face Management
Firstly, in PF1 (Chinese-speaking journalists asking questions in Chinese), there is a
general trend of use of deferent address terms (vocative and non-vocative) while in PF1a
the interpreters seem to leave out such markers of deference and markers of interactivity30
in most cases. As suggested in Chapter 2 (2.1.1), in dialogue interpreting (Mason 1999 and
Wadensjö 1998 ), such deference and interactive features are very important. PF1a also
provides evidence of the omission of deferent devices in openings and closings of questions
(4.1.2.1). Together, these shifts do appear to have an effect of reduced deference and
reduced interactivity. In contrast, in PF2b, where the interpreters are dealing with question
put in English, there is an increased deference as the interpreters tend to replace unmarked
second person pronoun reference (‘you’) with their marked honorific alternates - with only
two exceptions (Examples 57, 58). In PF3 (ministerial replies), the ministers do not use
address terms very often. They seem to use them only to express some strong emotion or
reaction (see 4.31.). There are also instances where address terms are used as third person
reference (Examples 79-82). This indicates that the minister is addressing a much larger
audience than the person who asks the question. In PF3c, the interpreters generally do not
relay this intention of addressing to a larger audience. In Examples 76-82, the interpreter
only relays the address terms in two instances (Examples78 and 82).
In PF1 and PF1a and PF2 and PF2b, the addressee is the minister. The different deference
strategy adopted by the interpreters reflects the fact that they are adapting to their intended
audience, as distinct from their formal addressees. In PF1a, the interpreter is not designing
her interpretation for the minister and this is why she leaves out the deferent devices. In
contrast, in PF2b she is designing her interpretation for the addressee i.e. the minister and
30
For example, address terms such as ‘Prime Minister’ show not only deference but also indicate interactivity.
187
this is why she is adding in deference devices. This suggests that while all other factors
remain constant, audience design is the governing factor on the interpreters’ behaviour.
Secondly, in the analysis of personal reference, it was found (4.1.3) that there is a general
trend of interpreters using less first person reference in PF1a than the questioners use in
PF1 (see Table 9 under 4.1.3). It appears that the interpreters take a distancing and
detachment orientation in their output when they are interpreting the journalists’ speech.
This is in contrast to PF3c where the interpreters, representing the ministers’ speech, add in
more first person reference to fill in the missing subjects. Here, the interpreters seem to
claim attachment and solidarity with the speaker they are representing. This suggests that
the interpreter seems to identify with the minister rather than the journalists. As suggested
in section 4.4, one of the sociality rights that the interpreters may have is to have an image
of a responsible and loyal employee. This may explain why they adopt a detachment
orientation towards the journalists while identifying with the minister. In PF2b
(interpretation of English questions), the use of the first person pronoun is not a feature but
the second person pronoun is a distinctive feature. The interpreter relays the second person
pronouns into honorific forms.
Thirdly, there is shift between directness and indirectness. In PF1, there is a pattern of
asking questions in a more mitigated manner (see 4.1.4). In PF1a, on the other hand, the
interpreters show a pattern of increased directness: the questions are relayed in a more
straightforward way (e.g. explicitation). An opposite trend is detected in PF2b where the
directness is reduced by adding mitigating devices or using the conventionally indirect
structure., In PF3c, similarly to PF1a, there are instances of explicitation with the effect of
increased directness and face-threat. Therefore, when the interpreters are addressing the
minister they adopt a different face-work strategy from the one they adopt when addressing
the international English-speaking audience. They show deference and indirectness to the
minister but directness to the international audience. Given that the only change in the
participation framework is that of the intended recipient, this seems to be a clear case of
audience design.
188
6.2.2 Findings under Information Management
Chapter 5 investigated information management by examining the parameters of
explicitation and presupposition31.
In PF1a and PF3c (that is, the interpreter frameworks in which the minister is not the
primary recipient), a general trend of explicitation appears. The strategy of explicitation
produces both face management effects (see the previous section) and information
management effects. Here we focus on the information management effects. These
instances of explicitation are mainly cultural explicitation as the interpreters often fill in the
information which is culturally specific. The Chinese-speaking audience and the Englishspeaking audience do not share the same cognitive environment and what is manifest to
Chinese speakers may not be easily accessible to the English-speaking audience. The
interpreters seem to make what is implied and ambiguous explicit for their intended
recipients. In PF3c, in particular, the interpreters make the absent grammatical subjects
more explicit and they break complex sentences into smaller units to make links more
explicit, thus improving cohesion and therefore ease of processing.
In PF2b, explicitation is not a strong feature apart from a few instances of optional
explicitation. The interpreter and the minister (as addressee) share the same cognitive
environment and their take on the world bears more resemblance. The few cases of optional
explicitation involve use of a more familiar term or adopting the government’s or the
minister’s preferred terms. This can be explained by what Bell called ‘convergence’ (See
example 109).
The frequent use of explicitation when the interpreters are addressing the international
audience as their intended audience illustrates the fact that the interpreters are aware of the
different cognitive environment that the intended audience have and adapt their interpreting
strategy to suit their intended audience. While all the other factors in the participation
framework remain constant, this is again clear evidence of audience design at work.
31
It is important to note that these parameters may deliver effects related to face management in some instances but as
they are information management devices and they produce effects associated with information management, this is why
explicitation and presupposition are analyzed under Chapter 5.
189
With regard to presupposition, in PF1a, there is no particular pattern formed in the
interpreters’ treatment of instances of presupposition. It appears that the shifts in
presupposition reflect the different world knowledge that the interpreter has as compared to
that of the journalists she is interpreting. This is evidence that the interpreter does not just
follow the principle of being ‘faithful, accurate and complete’ in all cases. In PF3c, there is
little evidence of presupposition shifts. Such lack of shifts itself indicates that the
interpreter shares the orientation of the government or the minister she is translating. In
PF2b, on the other hand, instances of presupposition shifts are more for face management
effects (i.e. reduced directness – see 6.2.1 above).
The evidence that the interpreters do not make presupposition shifts in PF3c while there are
such shifts in PF1a and PF2b indicate that the interpreters’ take on the world identifies with
the minister. This is evidence that the interpreters’ loyalty is with the minister. This is
backed up by the interpreter’s sociality rights as a loyal employee.
To conclude, we provide Interpretation Reception Frameworks (IRF1, IRF2, IRF3) which
focus on the reception end of the framework when the interpreter is the speaker. These
correspond to PF1a, PF2b and PF3c but reflect the findings about audience design listed
above.
In order to overcome a problem concerning the term ‘addressee’, we shall borrow a term
from Kang (1998) for the purposes of our IRFs. Kang describes a particular participation
framework (monolingual) where a speaker tries to reach more than one addressee at the
same time. She calls it a ‘triadic exchange’. In such an exchange, the speaker
uses/addresses a ‘mediator’, i.e. a mediating addressee, to convey a message to another copresent addressee(s) who is the real ‘target’ of the speaker (ibid.: 384). Kang uses a
diagram to describe the situation, reproduced here as 6.1.
Speaker---- > Mediator - - - - > Target
Fig. 6.1 Triadic Exchanges (from Kang 1998: 384)
It is very common for a speaker to address one person while intending to communicate a
message to another co-present person. For example, participants A (female), B (female) and
190
C (male) are engaged in an interaction. A says to B: ‘He could have tried harder.’ From
this remark, it appears that A directly addresses B but she actually intends C to hear her
remark. Therefore, B is the direct/formal addressee or ‘mediator’ and C is the ‘target’
addressee.
Mason and Stewart (2001) introduce Kang’s monolingual participation framework into
interpreted events. They illustrate a triadic exchange participation framework with an
example of a court interpreting event which involves a witness, an attorney, a judge and a
jury. When the witness answers the question from the attorney, the direct/formal addressee
is the attorney but the target addressees are actually the judge and the jury. In the
interaction, the attorney is a mediator in Kang’s (1998) sense. Bell distinguishes between
addressee, auditors, overhearers and eavesdroppers but he does not distinguish between
formal addressee and target addressee (intended recipient). In our study, the distinction
between the formal addressee and the target addressee is very important because, as we
have seen, in certain participation frameworks the formal addressee and the target
addressee are not the same. In our IRFs, we need to make such a distinction to illustrate our
findings.
Speaker
the interpreter;
Formal Addressee
the minister (not the primary intended receiver of the
interpretation);
Target Addressees
English-speaking journalists (the primary intended receivers of
the interpretation) and the English-speaking TV audience
(outer/mass audience);
Auditors
Chinese-speaking journalists and officials sitting with the
minister;
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference;
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
IRF1/Interpretation Reception Framework1 (Chinese questions)
Speaker
the interpreter;
191
Formal Addressee
the journalist who asks the question (not the primary intended
receiver of the interpretation);
Target addressees
all the English-speaking journalists (the primary intended
receiver of the interpretation) and English-speaking TV
audience (outer/mass audience);
Auditors
the Chinese speaking journalists and the officials sitting with the
minister
(not
the
primary
intended
receiver
of
the
interpretation);
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference;
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
IRF3 (Replies)
In IRF1 and IRF 3, the primary receiver of the interpretation is not the addressee in the
participation framework. We suggest from the evidence presented in the analysis that the
interpreters intend the primary receivers of interpretation to be English-speaking journalists,
rather than the minister. This would explain why the interpretation consistently has the
effect of reduced deference and increased directness. Let us take explicitation for example.
It has the effect of assisting the audience from a different cultural background to process
the information more easily. The materials added by the interpreter may be redundant for
the Chinese audience. This suggests that the interpreter has a different audience in mind
other than her formal addressee when she is interpreting Chinese into English. The
interpreters do not seem to mind using less deference in their interpretation, presumably
because they are aware that the auditors instead of the formal addressee are relying on their
interpretation. However, in IRF1, the interpreters take a distancing and detached orientation
towards the journalists they are translating while in IRF3, the interpreters seem to share the
government’s or the minister’s orientation. This can be explained by the interpreters’
sociality rights (c.f. Spencer-Oatey’s sociality rights). This indicates that while audience
design is exerting its influence on the interpreters' behaviour, sociality rights occasionally
are affecting interpreters' behaviour so that they orient themselves towards the speaker as
well as the hearers. Sharing the addressees’ orientation can also be explained by what Bell
called ‘convergence’ (See Example 109).
192
Speaker
The interpreter;
Target Addressee
the minister (the primary receiver of the interpretation);
Auditors
Chinese-speaking journalists and officials sitting with the
minister (the secondary receiver of the interpretation); the
English-speaking journalists (not primary intended receivers).
Overhearers
all other people in the conference, such as supporting staff of the
press conference; the Chinese TV audience (outer/mass
audience);
Eavesdroppers
analysts; language learners, etc.
IRF2 (English questions)
In IRF2, the addressee and the primary receiver of the interpretation are the same person,
namely the government minister. The evidence (mitigation, implication and deference)
suggest that the interpreter is designing for a different audience. She is now actually
addressing the minister.
To summarize, in terms of the initial hypothesis, if the only factor that changes is the
recipient framework then it seems reasonable to attribute the shifts to audience design.
Therefore, we consider the evidence here supports the hypothesis. The present study has
confirmed that the interpreters working for these press conferences do not always follow
the principle of ‘faithfulness, accuracy, completeness’. Indeed, all our examples taken
together suggest quite the opposite. The interpreters’ behaviour is influenced by the
particular audience (i.e. the primary intended receiver) that they have in mind to serve.
They adapt their strategy to suit their audience despite the guiding principles that are
imposed on interpreters in such situations. Evidence presented suggests that the hypothesis
that audience design is involved in interpreters’ behaviour was understated. Audience
design appears to be systematically involved in the interpreters’ behaviour. As a result,
although the interpreters work in a general stance of invisibility or as a ‘non-participant’
(Knapp-Potthoff and Knapp 1986:152-153), the interpreters make shifts, which make them
visible with a greater agency role. This study confirms that the general image of the
interpreter as a semi-automatic machine with little or no personal agency is not practical. It
193
provides evidence that interpreting is far from being a mechanical activity with no
advocacy involved (c.f. Berk-Seligson 1990; Morris: 1993; Wadensjö 1998; Roy 2000;
Mullamaa 2009).
6.3 Original contribution
Audience design seeks to explain ‘the ways speakers talk to each other differently
depending on the characteristics of their interlocutors, their own-presentation, and other
factors in the speech situation.’ (Bell 2001:148) The audience design model as proposed by
Bell primarily focuses on intra-speaker style shift in monolingual situations but Bell
(2001:144) indicates that audience design is applicable not only to monolingual but can
also apply to multilingual settings. He does not however offer any detailed explanation or
evidence to back up his claim. Mason (2000) introduces audience design into translation
studies and suggests its usefulness in exploring interpersonal and inter-textual relations in
translations studies. Mason and Serban (2003) apply audience design in Romanian
literature translations and find a distancing effect of audience design. Most recently,
Saldanha (2008) investigates the translator’s motivation by examining the use of
explicitation and finds out that instances of explicitation can be explained with reference to
relevance theory and the concept of audience design.
The original contribution of this research lies in the following features. Firstly, it is the first
attempt to investigate audience design in an authentic interpreting corpus (Chinese-English).
The model based on audience design and face management has been designed specifically
for the analysis of the study. The interpreted ministerial press conferences have been used
to create a corpus and have been transcribed for this research. Unlike this study, other
studies do not rely on transcription of speech. When they are used in research they are
always taken as written texts (Wu 2007; Chang 2007). The analysis of such data has always
stayed at the surface level of accuracy assessment. Authentic interpreting data provides
more valuable insights on interpreters’ behaviour and their performance. It is important not
to treat interpreting data as written translating. Translators may have the opportunity to read
the source text more than once and to revise the target text a few times. Interpreters operate
in real time. Even in consecutive interpreting, interpreters need to compose what they have
194
to say in real time. In addition, translators tend to work with written texts only while
interpreters need to respond to their environment (their audience and what they have said).
It is precisely these elements that audience design studies seek to capture.
Secondly, Bell’s audience design model has been widely experimented with in monolingual
settings. The present study enriches the applications of audience design in multi-lingual
situations like interpreting settings. It broadens the dimensions of the effect of audience
design in the sense that the participation frameworks of a single event can be variable and
the effect on audience design is variable accordingly. If audience design study is limited to
one language and culture, we will miss the opportunity to discover what happens when an
individual participant has to cope with two different communities: language and culture 1 +
language and culture 2. Interpreters tend to feel the strain when they need to communicate
two different kinds of thinking. The present study has shown that the framework of
audience design can help to investigate such extra dimensions. Consequently, the present
study is also a contribution to audience design studies.
Thirdly, the findings of the research are useful for the practice of interpreting, interpreting
training and interpreting assessment. They show that audience design happens in real
interpreting situations. It has always been taken for granted that conference interpreters
should be ‘faithful, accurate and complete’ regardless of their audience and without
examining top-quality interpreters’ actual behaviour (c.f. 1.1). Instead of looking at the
assessment criteria first and then looking at interpreters’ behaviour, we should proceed the
other way around. The criteria should emerge from a fair description of what high-quality
interpreters actually do. This will result in assessment criteria that fairly reflect what may
be expected of a trainee interpreter. If it is appropriate to take audience design into
consideration in the study of interpreting, then audience design should be considered for
inclusion in interpreter training and interpreter accreditation and assessment.
Fourthly, the present study has investigated the situations where the interpreters interpret
for an addressee but also for the benefit of non-addressees (present or non-present). Such
variations in an individual interpreter’s performance provides evidence for the interpreter’s
personal agency. There are many studies (e.g. Morris 1989, Berk-Seligson 1990; Wadensjö
1992; Jacobsen 2002) that have challenged the conventional notion of fidelity. My research
195
has shown that human factors are involved in departures from literal translation and it has
challenged the public perception that interpreters are ‘invisible’ and play a role of semiautomatic translators.
Lastly, we have also discovered evidence of faithfulness being affected by factors of
sociality rights and cultural loyalty (see 4.3.2 and 4.4 and c.f. Chapter 2).
6.4 Limitation and indications for further research
The scope of this research is a corpus based on 3 ministerial press conferences. In the
corpus, the use of English as the ST is proportionally less than the use of Chinese as the ST
because both the Chinese journalists (a majority of those present) and the minister speak
Chinese. Therefore, the insights gained from English-to-Chinese interpretation are fewer
than from Chinese-to-English interpretation. There are some features in the English-toChinese interpretation from which conclusions cannot be drawn due to the fact that they do
not occur frequently enough to form a valid trend due to the size of the corpus. Although
the corpus is reasonably large, it reflects the behaviour of only three interpreters. The
findings in the present study are fairly conclusive within the terms of the study itself but it
would be desirable to replicate the present study (see below).
Further investigation of interactional goals and sociality rights (Spencer-Oatey 2000) would
also be a useful addition to the results of the present study. This would allow the findings of
the present study to be related more closely to issues such as power structure, interpreter
loyalty, personal agency and neutrality. All of these issues are currently very topical areas
in interpreting studies.
One potential development of this research could be to include more such press conferences
so that there are more insights to be gained from the interpreter’s performance in the
English- into-Chinese interpretation. Further research could also go beyond the ministerial
level press conferences as there have been other topic-specific interpreted press conferences
recently (such as the SARS press conferences, Swine flu press conferences). The
interpreters’ performance in these topic-specific press conferences may be different from
196
that in the minister’s press conferences because the former are more of an ad hoc nature
while the latter ones are planned. Further research can be carried out to test the hypothesis
in other languages and genres to find out if audience design is at work only at Chinese press
conferences. In addition, the author is very keen to investigate whether audience design
should be incorporated in interpreting training. It will be interesting to find out if trainee
interpreters’ awareness of intended receivers has any effect on their performance and, if so,
what kind of effect:
in what ways does such awareness actually enhance or hinder
performance? Moreover, how audience design as a reasonable human factor may influence
interpreting accreditation and assessment are also considered as an immediate future
research project. Finally, a comparative study of the quality control and code of practice
that are imposed on press conference interpreters would be of tremendous interest to the
author.
197