A multimodal corpus approach to dialogue interpreting studies in the Chinese context: towards a multi-layer analytic framework

Abstract

Analysing both linguistic and non-linguistic strata in dialogue interpreting (DI) studies sheds new light on the dynamic interaction where meanings are also constructed both verbally and non-verbally. Most existing literature in DI has focused on linguistic description, calling for the need to explore interpretative and explanatory frontiers. DI between English and Chinese involves linguistic and cultural complexities; albeit they impose significant difficulties, these complications provide useful data for analysis beyond description as the multimodal semiotic resources of DI work in an integrated entirety. Underpinned by the stratification theory in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), we propose a multi-layer analytic framework (MAF) that integrates with the multimodal approach to DI, empowers the corpus techniques and enables DI researchers to investigate the ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions cross-modally, in particular when distant language pairs (such as English and Chinese) entail investigation into visual and contextual data. This article, though exploratory in nature, raises important methodological issues for future DI studies involving linguistically and culturally distant languages.