Yang Chen
THE INSTITUTIONALISATION OF COURT INTERPRETING IN CHINA (1901-1949)
The first half of the twentieth century witnessed the transformation of China’s institutions across political, legal and educational settings. With more and more incoming foreigners and a modern legal system taking shape, there was a rising demand for court interpreters accompanied by signs indicating institutionalisation of court interpreting, i.e. a process by which the practice of court interpreting became increasingly regulated by the government and more embedded in China’s judicial system. However, much of that history remains fragmentary and unclear in the existing literature. In order to address this gap, this research aims to study how court interpreting became an institutionalised practice in China’s judicial system from 1901 to 1949.
This research will explore the institutionalisation of court interpreting on two levels. On the level of organisational structure, it intends to reveal the evolutionary path of the institutional framework governing court interpreting and the changing socio-political context shaping such a process of institutionalisation. On the level of interpreters, it aims to investigate court interpreters as a social group undergoing institutionalisation, focusing on their institutional roles and positions.
Adopting a diachronic and sociological approach, this research will search, analyse and cross-reference historical data concerning court interpreting and the socio-political context, including newspapers, journal articles, laws, regulations and court archives, to give a descriptive and explanatory account of the institutionalisation of court interpreting throughout the early twentieth century.
The research wishes to present an original work on the writing of Chinese history of court interpreting, inform the contemporary development of court interpreting, and inspire future China studies with a legal, sociological or historical perspective.
Jade Du, School of Modern Languages, Newcastle University
Ya-Yun Chen, School of Modern Languages, Newcastle University
Joseph Lawson, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle University
Book Chapters
Yang Chen, 'Lessons from simultaneous interpreting at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Asia Energy Forum: A case study of the chairman’s speech from the perspective of E-C simultaneous interpreting with text', in A Guide to Writing MTI Dissertations, ed. Huang Guowen (Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2012), 51-84.
Yang Chen, 'Translation strategy for modern suspense and detective novels from the perspective of functional equivalence: A comparative study of two Chinese versions of The Da Vinci Code from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan', in A Guide to Writing MTI Dissertations, ed. Huang Guowen (Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2012), 158-190.
Yang Chen, 'Suggestions to frequently asked questions on project-based MTI dissertation in interpreting', in A Guide to Writing MTI Dissertations, ed. Huang Guowen (Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2012), 192-197.
Journal Articles
Yang Chen, 'An empirical study on simultaneous interpreting for focus group discussion in China: Status quo and existing challenges', Chinese Translators Journal, no. 3 (2016), 70-77.