This book investigates a special genre of interpreting in the Chinese context, namely Government Press Conference (GPC) Interpreting. Drawing on the modality system from Systemic Functional Grammar and a corpus of 21 interpreting events, the project explores the regular patterns of modality shifts in Chinese-English GPC interpreting and seeks explanations in the sociocultural context. As a corpus-based project, the book covers qualitative analysis of the sociocultural context, qualitative analysis of the interpersonal effects of modality shifts, and quantitative analysis of modality shifts. This book will contribute to the understanding of the distinctive features of GPC interpreting in China, shed new light on the rendition of modality between Chinese and English in specific contexts, and also inspire new thoughts on the nature of interpreting in general.

Autorentext
Xin Li is an instructor of College English and a researcher in translation/interpreting studies at the School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. She has a PhD in foreign linguistics and applied linguistics with a specialization in corpus-based translation/interpreting studies. Based on her active engagement in translation/interpreting research projects, she has published articles in influential journals in China such as Computer-assisted Foreign Language Education, Foreign Language Learning Theory and Practice, and Contemporary Foreign Languages Studies. She is also the associate editor of Critical Readings of Corpus-based Translation Studies (2012, in Chinese).

Inhalt
Chapter 1 Introduction1.1 Background1.2 Rationale1.3 Research questions1.4 Theoretical framework1.5 Data and method1.6 Organization of the bookChapter 2 Corpus-based Interpreting Studies2.1 An overview of corpus-based interpreting studies2.3 Corpus-based studies on GPC interpreting in ChinaChapter 3 Modality in English and Chinese3.1 Studies on English modality3.2 Studies on Chinese modality3.3 Studies of modality in translation between Chinese and English3.4 Contrastive studies on modality in Chinese and English political speeches 3.5 A Systemic Functional view of modality in English and ChineseChapter 4 Modality Shifts in the Use of English Modality Markers4.1 General features of modality shifts 4.1.1 Overall degree and distribution of modality shifts 4.1.2 Modality shifts with different ST speakers 4.2 Interpersonal effects of the major types of modality shifts4.2.1 Weakening and subjectivisation4.2.2 Strengthening4.2.3 De-obligation4.3 Summary Chapter 5 Modality Shifts in the Translation of Chinese Modality Markers 5.1 General features of modality shifts 5.1.1 Overall degree and distribution of modality shifts 5.1.2 Modality shifts with different ST speakers 5.2 Interpersonal effects of the major types of modality shifts5.2.1 Strengthening and objectivisation5.2.2 De-obligation 5.3 Summary Chapter 6 The Reconstruction of Modality in Relation to Its Sociocultural context6.1 Modality reconstruction in GPC interpreting in relation to its meta-discourse6.1.1 The meta-discourse on diplomatic interpreting in China6.1.2 Juxtaposing the reconstruction of modality in GPC interpreting with the meta-discourse6.2 Modality reconstruction in GPC interpreting in relation to its typological features 6.2.1 Participants and goals of communication6.2.2 Topics and speech type6.2.3 Temporal and spatial setting6.2.4 Working mode and directionality6.3 SummaryChapter 7 Conclusion7.1 Major findings7.2 Contributions and implications 7.3 Limitations and suggestions for future researchReferences Appendices