Essentials of Oral Defense (English/Chinese Translation)

This lecture will address the academic issues you need to be aware of in your oral defense. It will not cover the administrative issues concerning the event.

What makes an oral defense? 5~ 10 minutes 5~ 10 minutes Thesis Presentation Session Question & Answer Session + You present a summary of your thesis. You answer questions raised by the examiners. What makes an oral defense?

Part I: Thesis Presentation Q1: What should I include in my presentation? Q3: What should I stay alert to when preparing for my thesis presentation? Q2: What should I stay alert to when presenting my thesis?

Part I: Thesis Presentation Q1: What should I include in my presentation? Q3: What should I stay alert to when preparing for my thesis presentation? Q2: What should I stay alert to when presenting my thesis?

1. Context against which the thesis is set You need to specify the following information: Who you are and where you work: E.g. I’m a staff in a joint venture titled XXX…. What the situation is: E.g. At work I always engage in the translation of legal documents. During this process, what challenges me most is often long and complicated sentences. How to analyse and then render them into the precise and smooth target language is what had prompted me to carry out the research….

2 . Research objective and rationale You need to specify the following information: Research objective: E.g. This research is intended to figure out some practical skills that can be applied to the translation of legal documents. Research rationale: E.g. This research bases itself on certain theories. One of them is “Dynamic Equivalence” by the famous American translation theorists Nida. To put it briefly, this theory suggests that….

3 . Data description and analysis You need to specify the following information: Data description: E.g. The data analysed in this research are 30 sentences collected from some legal documents. They all feature complex structures and consequently may pose difficulties of analysis and comprehension to the translator…. Data analysis: E.g. The 30 sentences are categorized into several groups in accordance with the methods they are translated with. From each group, a few samples are then selected and examined in detail….

4. Results and suggestions You need to specify the following information: Results: E.g. Through the data analysis, it is found that several differences exist between the English and Chinese syntactical structures in legal documents. These differences include….To deal with such differences, a variety of skills are at the translator’s disposal…. Suggestions: E.g. Regarding the proper use of the above-mentioned skills, it is suggested that the translator should take into account such elements as….

5. Conclusion and limitations You need to specify the following information: Conclusion: E.g. In conclusion, the discrepancies between Chinese and English at the syntactical level requires the translator of legal documents to adopt suitable skills. Meanwhile, the translator is advised to make a wise selection of these skills…. Limitations: E.g. There are, however, a few limitations to the research that may affect the above-made conclusion. For one thing, the size of the data is limited. If more data were collected and analyzed, further differences or skills may have been discovered. For another things….

Part I: Thesis Presentation Q1: What should I include in my presentation? Q3: What should I stay alert to when preparing for my thesis presentation? Q2: What should I stay alert to when presenting my thesis?

Content: All for one. Research objective, research rationale, data description, data analysis, results and suggestions, conclusions and limitations should address the SAME issue, or the topic of the research. Organization: All in one. Make sure that you include all the above-mentioned components and follow the suggested sequence. Use markers whenever possible (so, therefore, first, second, etc.) Language: No excuse for any mistakes. Use short sentences. Use markers to indicate the sequence and change of topics. Use correct tenses.

Part I: Thesis Presentation Q1: What should I include in my presentation? Q3: What should I stay alert to when preparing for my thesis presentation? Q2: What should I stay alert to when presenting my thesis?

1) Manner: Start your presentation upon the examiners’ permission. Indicate when your presentation is over. No reading of your paper, or notes is allowed. 2) Pronunciation: Accuracy, speed, intonation.

Q1: What might be the questions? Part II: Q & A Session Q1: What might be the questions? Q2: What is considered to be a good answer?

Q1: What might be the questions? Part II: Q & A Session Q1: What might be the questions? Q2: What is considered to be a good answer?

Your examiners will focus their questions on key issues or issues that need further clarification or specification concerning your thesis and your presentation. You need to have a “mind-map” of the organization and content of your thesis. In addition, you should be able to interpret the information conveyed in your thesis using simple and communicative language.

Concerning your topic: Why are you interested in this topic? How closely related is your topic to your work? Concerning your research objective: What is the relevance of this objective to your topic? What significance or benefits will your research bring to the translation profession? Concerning your research rationale: What are the major theories that back up your research? How are these theories related to your data analysis? Could you elaborate on one of these theories?

Concerning your data description: Can you briefly describe the data? What are the sources of the data? How are the data connected with the research objective? Concerning your data analysis: What are your methods to analyze the data? How can the data analysis help fulfill your research objective ? How do the theories mentioned in the rationale help guide the date analysis?

Concerning your results: What results can you derive from the data analysis? How can the data analysis verify the results? Have you achieved your research objective by coming up with such results? Why or why not? Concerning your suggestions: What implications do the results have for translation practice? How can the data analysis support the suggestions?

Concerning your research in general: What have you learnt from this research? In what ways can this research benefit your work? What difficulties did you come across when implementing your research and how did you solve them? In what ways can your research be improved?

Q1: What might be the questions? Part II: Q & A Session Q1: What might be the questions? Q2: What is considered to be a good answer?

What is said is what has been written. Give brief answers to the point. You can name the chapter where an answer is addressed as a further reference for the examiners. Use short sentences! Use correct tenses! Speak good English! Communicate, don’t recite!

Good Luck!