Abstract

Since the reform and the policy of opening up to the outside world, China has fully integrated into the international community. International communication has been more and more frequent in this country. That’s why the number of international conferences is increasing day by day in China. The number of English speeches in such conferences is also tremendously increasing. The demand for the translation quality of these English speeches is enhancing. How to improve the translation quality of the English speeches in formal conferences has become a concern for the domestic translation circle. On the other hand, sight translation, translating while reading the source language material, has increasingly been a major translation method in formal international conferences. The three principles of sight translation--translate according to the source language sequence; compart the source language sentences into sense groups while translating; connect sense groups while translating—have also been widely applied in the translation of English speeches addressed in formal conferences. Under the demand of simultaneous translation, can the adoption of the three principles of sight translation guarantee and improve the translation quality of English conference speeches? Can the sight translation adopting the three principles excel the written translation version of the same speech content in certain aspects? Which one of those prominent theoretical perspectives is proper to analyze this comparison? Why the author compares and analyzes two different translation versions from this perspective?  These questions are what the author has studied and will explain in this paper.

This paper will first introduce the theoretical background of the three principles. Then based on the comparison and analysis about several famous translation theories, a demonstration will be offered about why the author selects Eugene A. Nida’s “equivalence” theory as this paper’s theoretical basis. Consequently, a number of examples will be introduced to compare and analyze written and sight translation versions of English conference speeches. Finally, based on these comparisons and analysis, certain enlightenments are concluded upon English conference speeches from the adoption of the three sight translation principles.        
    
Key words: three principles of sight translation, Eugene A. Nida’s “equivalence” theory, translation of formal conference English speeches.