A Study On C-E Interpretation Of Culture-loaded Expressions From The Perspective Of High-and Low-context Theory

Culture-loaded expressions refer to those expressions unique to one culture.They are now frequently applied by Chinese speakers on international stages,such as Boao Forum,UN conference and so on.Such expressions include idioms and proverbs,classical poetries and prose,Chinese political expressions and other expressions bounded with Chinese culture.Considering their cultural deposits,they are expected to present the beauty and charm of Chinese to foreign audiences.However,they also pose great challenges to interpreters in interpretation as they are closely related to the culture and history of the source language and equivalents could hardly be found in the target language.Different communication styles,experience,and awareness of context are the profound reasons for these challenges in intercultural communication.Therefore,it is worthwhile to study the interpretation of culture-loaded expressions from a perspective of intercultural communication.The present research,based on Edward Hall’s Theory of High-and Low-Context Culture,investigates the C-E interpretation of culture-loaded expressions.The keynote speeches of the Chinese side at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia in 2012-2019 are taken as materials of the study to identify the difficulties in the process and explore the coping strategies to them.Results of the qualitative analysis show that difficulty at the macro level is the balance between explicitness and implicitness,while difficulty at the micro level mainly concerns the cultural meaning and contextual meaning of the culture-loaded expressions.The macro difficulty is caused by the divergent communication modes of English and Chinese,and the contrast features of speeches and culture-loaded expressions;while the micro difficulty results from the contextings of both cultures where different command of cultural knowledge and awareness of the scene and overall background play roles.Coping strategies are also drawn from the materials accordingly.The macro strategy is giving priority to the clearness and directness of the output and,under such a premise,the cultural features of the expressions could be maintained.At the micro level,four interpreting strategies are generalized.The two major strategies are liberal interpreting and literal interpreting and the two minor ones are borrowing and omission.Among them,liberal interpreting is the most frequently adopted strategy which is proved by quantitative analysis.The quantitative analysis also shows that diachronic fluctuations could be found in the uses of strategies,but no evident evolution of strategy could be found.Suggestions are proposed for interpreting practice and training by the end of the thesis.