Coping Tactics For Interpreting Terminologies In Tourist Interpreting

Since the reform and opening up, tourism has increasingly become one of thepillar industries of China’s economy. It’s of great significance to promote Chinesecultures through the development of tourism industry. In the process, touristinterpreters play an indispensable role with the responsibility to help foreign touristsfrom different lingual and cultural backgrounds enhance their understanding andappreciation of this nation featuring five thousand years of civilization. One of thedifficult problems confronting the tourist interpreters may be the interpreting ofterminologies in the introduction of the scenic spots by the tour guide which embodyvarious specific elements in Chinese cultures. In this sense, whether the terminologiescan be transferred from the source language and culture to the target language andculture is very crucial in the cross-cultural communication.In order to help the foreign tourists understand these terminologies, the touristinterpreters have to adopt different coping tactics according to different situations. Intourist interpreting, the interpreter has to deal with terminologies from all possiblefields and answer the questions raised by the foreign tourists about the things orphenomenon which arouse their attention. What interest them may mostly relate tocertain cultures. In simple words, all the challenges possibly occur in the task requiresthe interpreter to spend a lot of time and effort on the collection of the backgroundinformation of the tourist spot before the task and interpret the terminologies in anacceptable and understandable way to the foreign tourists. Based on the author’sexperience as a tourist interpreter in the ancient house group of the Cai-Clan and theevaluation on the author’s interpretation performance by the foreign tourists, thisreport is trying to figure out the proper strategies to deal with different situations andexplore possible solutions to cope with challenges in the interpreting tasks as well assummarize the rules and frequently-used coping tactics.This report will describe and analyze the difficulties brought about by the interpretation of terminologies in the real cases and evaluates the transcript to seewhether or not the author has successfully bridge the cultural divide. The cases are therecord of the author’s performance, which are not necessarily the best version buthopefully can provide enlightenment to tourist interpreters.