Communication Barriers Caused By Cultural Differences In Escort Interpreting And Coping Strategies

With the rapid development of Chinese economy and China's further opening up, competent escort interpreters are in great demand.Escort interpreting, whose importance and level of difficulty are often underestimated, is facing great challenges brought about by cultural differences. China boasts a long and rich cultural tradition, which is tremendously different from the Western one. Those differences can be found in various aspects of culture, such as religion, life style, thought pattern and so on. This thesis tries to explore possible difficulties caused by such differences through exemplifications, and then divides those difficulties into several categories according to different cultural elements. Corresponding suggestions and coping strategies are proposed to each kind of difficulty, in order to achieve better understanding and communication.This thesis will analyze the above mentioned phenomenon from the following aspects:1. Analyzing cultural differences from multiple aspects, and researching into the causation relationship between the interpreting difficulties and those cultural elements;2. Under the guiding principle of Nida's theory of"Functional Equivalence", citing domestication and foreignization theories as the theoretical basis for applied coping strategies;3. In the practice of escort interpreting, what kind of coping strategies may effectively help escort interpreters to tackle those difficulties and to achieve better communication.4. How can escort interpreters improve their competence to deal with those communication difficulties caused by cultural differences.