The difficulties of interpreting “humility” behaviours and the influential factors: a case study on post-game interviews in LPL English stream

• Main Author: Song, Wenqing
• Other Authors: Lim Ni Eng
• Format: Thesis-Master by Coursework
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Humanities::Language
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/168384
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The League of Legends Pro League (LPL) is China’s highest professional League of Legends tournament. While leading the way towards professionalism, marketability and industrialisation of China’s esports, it has also given rise to the emergence of esports online programmes. During the post-game interviews of the LPL English stream, the presenter, who also acts as an interpreter, is responsible for interpreting the interviewees’ answers consecutively. The humility behaviours of the interviewees in their answers pose several challenges to the interpreter. The aim of this paper is to explore the difficulties encountered by the presenter and interpreter when interpreting humility behaviours. This study collected data from post-game interviews conducted by the same interpreter, Wendi, during the 2021 Summer Split. It discusses the concept and categorisation of “humility” by reviewing the literature and lists the forms in which interviewees express “humility”, the interpretation strategies chosen by the interpreter and the probable reasons, and the difficulties the interpreter faced. This paper argues that the problems encountered by the interpreter may stem from balancing multiple identities in the interpreting process. As the presenter, she needs to keep the programme moving at a tight pace and allocate part of her energy to the task of hosting besides interpreting details such as “humility” or “self-effacement”. As a cross-cultural communicator, the interpreter must be faithful to the speaker’s original intention and restate it in a way that makes the interviewee’s ideas acceptable to the target language audience. As a staff member, the interpreter should fulfil the purpose of the sponsor of the interpretation event, i.e. to promote the interviewee to an overseas audience. The interpreter faces challenges from, within, and beyond the discourse itself.