Pragmatic Conventions in Simultaneous Interpreting: An Analytic Study of the Discourse of Diplomacy

Abstract

When interacting with others, people have a host of decisions to make: some people choose to go on record with the truth by becoming direct while others resort to lying to other people; some people choose to express their thoughts clearly while others opt for hinting at what they mean indirectly; some people offend, embarrass, or even hurt other people for the want of sending out certain messages through their interactions; while others choose to be polite all the time even at the expense of reaching a certain target they have in mind. When communicating with other people, each and every person focuses on a set of goals and intentions despite the fact that such goals and intentions could sometimes be vague or unclear to their interlocutors. A simple word, therefore, is considered the vehicle whereby such goals and intentions are conveyed through the conversation. People's competing goals and intentions, as well as the way they reach a certain target are, therefore, considered major areas in pragmatics; a branch of linguistics which addresses how people use words in order to reach certain ends, and the effect of their use on other people taking part in the same interaction. Pragmatics, moreover, explains why people sometimes become indirect in delivering what they want to say, why people might say one thing and mean another, and why sometimes they mean more than they actually say but choose to leave the hearer to come up with this conclusion. The speaker's actions, goals, and intentions, as well as their effect on the hearers are all areas that have been clearly investigated by pragmatics which discusses different angels of interpersonal interaction as well as speaker-hearer communication