2010 Shanghai Expo Interpretation Strategies From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

The purpose of this thesis is to study interpretation strategies for 2010 Shanghai Expo in light of relevance theory.As we all know, China won its successful bid for the World Exposition in 2010 and the grand event will be held in Shanghai from May 1 to October 31. The exposition will be the first registered World Exposition in a developing country, which gives people around the world an opportunity to witness China's rapid development in the recent decades.Interpretation is an interlingual and intercultural communication. As an important way of communication between people from different countries, interpretation is an essential factor to achieve a successful, splendid and unforgettable exposition.Relevance theory proposed by Sperber and Wilson, as a communicative theory of cognitive pragmatics, is dedicated to the studies of ostensive-inferential communication and is orientated to establish a general principle of interpreting the inner mechanism of human communication. The interpretation process is an inferential process with the pursuit of optimal relevance. To comprehend and represent the informative and communicative intention of the speaker, the interpreter needs to select the appropriate context, combine information with his or her own cognitive environment and make inference about the speaker-intended assumption. At the reproduction stage of the target language, the interpreter needs to pay attention to the listeners'cognitive environment and express the communicative intention of the speaker with words that match the most relevance.This thesis introduces the interpretation and relevance theory concepts in the first part. Then, the author summarizes the general Expo interpretation types, the interpreter's role at Expo, and some foreseeable obstacles. Last but not least, to help interpreters better grasp the nature of interpretation, make the best choice of words and guide them in practices, the interpretation strategies in the relevance theory perspective are proposed for Expo interpretation along with the suggested interpretation skills.