Optimal Meaning Selection In Banquet Interpreting

Banquet interpreting is characterized by fastidious courtesy,loose language,and broad topics.Now and then,interpreters may change their interpreting approaches:consecutive interpreting,sight interpreting,and whispered interpreting at the banquet,and are required to observe non-verbal communication like gestures.Interpreters should also try to match the original communicators’ intention with the target audience’s expectation claims in relevance theory.It was a great honor for the author to serve as an interpreter at banquet and venues of the Changsha International Construction Equipment Exhibition held in May 2021,which offered a practical basis for the report.This report aims to analyze the interpreting strategies interpreter used to achieve optimal meaning and smooth communication in the banquet of CICEE.It provides a brief task description and relevance theory firstly.The following sections are:description of the preparation;sight interpretation,consecutive interpretation,and whispered interpretation during the formal and informal banquet.After the task has completed,she collected evaluation forms from three foreign guests from Costa Rica and conducted her self-reflection.Case study explores the application of relevance theory in the banquet interpreting of CICEE from dynamic context,situational context and cultural context.And specific explanations on the choice of banquet interpreting strategies in terms of lexical,syntactic,discourse and pragmatic level are provided.On the basis of the transcripts,the author explores some interpreting strategies such as chunks collection,transcodage,rank shift,ellipsis,substitution,explanation,splitting and repetition.Banquet interpreting has its own specific contexts,analysis of its interpreting strategies are required to achieve optimal meaning selection.Also,interpreting tools,effort coordination and language convention are worthy noticing.The author hopes that this report could providing insights to those who will be engaged in banquet interpreting in the future in terms of contexts,optimal meaning selection and interpreting strategies and provide better interpreting service for the communicators.