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Introduction

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Hedges in Chinese-English Conference Interpreting

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Linguistics ((SBIL))

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Abstract

This research, drawing upon theories from sociology, pragmatics, and cognitive linguistics, is an interdisciplinary corpus-based study that explores interpreters’ role deviation in interpreting at Chinese government press conferences, with hedges as the intervening point.

This chapter offers a brief introduction on impetuses for this research and meanwhile concisely explains why study interpreters’ role and role deviation in conference interpreting, why take hedges as the intervening point to delve into interpreters’ role, why select press conferences held by the Chinese government as our data source.

Next, This chapter also highlights the research significance from conceptual, methodological and empirical aspects. Besides, the overall purpose of examining role deviation of conference interpreters through hedges shifts and shifting regularities is clearly presented in this chapter. To achieve this above-mentioned research purpose, three research questions are correspondingly raised:

RQ1::

What is the correlation between hedges and interpreters’ role? Why can interpreters’role be perceived through the use of hedges?

RQ2::

What is the distribution of hedges in Chinese and English corpus? Are there shifting regularities when hedges are rendered into the target language of English?

RQ3::

Can role deviation of conference interpreters be perceived through the use of hedges in corpus? What roles have conference interpreters actually performed in role deviation?

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Presently no consensus has been reached in previous studies as to whether we should use “interpreters’ role”, “interpreter’s role”, or “interpreters’ roles”. In general, “interpreter’s role” frequently occurs in case studies. Occasionally scholars use “interpreters’ role”. Given that this is a corpus-based study in which interpreting products of many interpreters from 30 instances of conference interpreting are included, we use the term “interpreters’ role”. In this research, when “role” is treated as a collective noun, we adopt its singular form; when we need to emphasize its partitioned sub-roles, we adopt its plural form.

  2. 2.

    “Role behavior” and “role expectation” are two major components in role theory in sociology, since behavior is an abstract and inclusive term, we use its singular form in this research, and however, as role expectation may come from different parties, and as each party may have more than one expectation, we mostly use its plural form in this research.

  3. 3.

    According to Biddle (1986), role expectations are phenomenal events that people are aware of. There are different classifications of role expectations: individual expectations versus shared expectations, personal expectations versus positional expectations, and expectations of the self versus expectations of others. In this research, we are only concerned with expectations that other parties (audiences, users, professions etc.) hold of conference interpreters. Interpreting practice standards and professional ethics from authoritative organizations such as AIIC and ATA are deemed as role expectations (from others on interpreters).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Foreign Languages, Guizhou Normal University, Guiyang, Guizhou, China

    Juan Hu

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Correspondence to Juan Hu .

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Hu, J. (2022). Introduction. In: Hedges in Chinese-English Conference Interpreting. SpringerBriefs in Linguistics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1442-3_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1442-3_1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-19-1441-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-19-1442-3

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