As we know, a press conference mainly takes the form of questions and answers. Questions are raised by different reporters. Hence one question and one answer form a comparatively complete and independent discourse. That is to say, when we mention language used at official press conferences, we refer to both the reporters’ question and the spokesperson’s answer. So the main difference is in how the information is presented—orally in interpreting and written in translation.

4.2 Foreign press conference interpreting
Foreign news conference interpreting is a very complicated task, as the practice of conference interpreting is a process in which the interpreter runs parallel with the speaker and by activating the linguistic and extra linguistic knowledge the interpreter gradually carries out the theory of functional equivalence from micro level to macro level. The purpose of conference interpreting is to let the listeners have the similar responses with the listeners in source language so that they can make correct judgment. This point complies with the requirement of functional equivalence, which is target language listener-oriented. It is by this agreement that the interpreter can apply functional equivalence in conference interpreting. Official language is the language used by government officials or spokesperson at press conferences, on behalf of the government, to express their viewpoints on certain important events or to answer questions from the mass media. It is one branch of political language, as note, memorandum, announcement etc. in written form and speech, negotiation etc. in spoken form.

李肇星外长回答中央电视台记者提出的有关公民海外旅游的问题:
(1) 李外长: 为以防万一, 你最好能了解离你到的地方最近的中国大使馆或者总领事馆的电话, 一旦出事, 你可以放心, 中国驻有关国家或地区的大使馆或者总领事馆, 会全力以赴、 会依法为你提供帮助。
Interpreter: And what you could do beside that if you are the unlucky one is you could find the telephone numbers of embassy and consulate general the closest to you. So whenever there is an incident you could ask for help from our embassy and consulate general. Our people will surely go all out to give you lawful protection.
(2) 新华社记者向温家宝总理提出有关教育的问题：
记者：在您的报告中，教育是个亮点，尤其是义务教育，提出了从今年起实行 “两免一补”的政策。
Interpreter: We can see that education figures quite prominently in your government’s report particularly the compulsory education. We know starting from this year, the government is going to exempt the tuition and miscellaneous fees for the rural poor students receiving compulsory education and government is also going to give subsidies to the students attending schools from poor families.

It is obviously important for those people who handle the international affairs to learn the international protocols and be aware of the differences that lie behind the different cultures since the differences may cause obstacles, failure or even disaster of the communication in the social activities. The author aims to remind the interpreter of the interferences caused by the cultural differences so as to arouse the attention to the situation and perfect the performance in reality.

4.3 Lexical level
When a political term is interpreted, care must be taken. For instance, Chinese “开放政策” refers to “policy of opening to the outside or world open policy” but not “open door”, which is a term used in the l890s by the American government who wanted to open the Chinese door and occupy parts of China.

Another example, the cabinet member of American government is called “secretary” instead of “minister”. In Great Britain，the cabinet member is also called “secretary”, so “the Secretary of Commerce” means American “商务部长” instead of “商务秘书”(there exists no corresponding post in the United Kingdom).Here ,we should put a strong emphasis on the equivalence. 从功能对等理论看政治辞令的英译(6):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_2420.html