On Improvement Of The Quality Of Interpretation From The Perspective Of Intercultural Communication

With the rapid development of transportation and communication technology, cultural and economic exchanges between different countries become more frequent than ever before. Interpretation, as the bridge of communication, plays an important role in intercultural communications. Therefore, how to improve the quality of interpretation is becoming an urgent problem. Interpretation is a job that helps people from different cultural backgrounds to communicate with each other, so it is a direct face-to-face communicative activity. Interpretation is not merely the shifting tool between the two languages but the intercultural activity which will inevitably encounter the intercultural communicative barriers and obstacles during interpreting. But for a long time the research of interpretation has been confined to the summary of interpreting skills and the linguistic aspects of interpreting. There are a few studies from the perspective of intercultural communication. In fact, the cultural factors affect the quality of the interpretation greatly. Therefore, it is significative both in theory and practice to study the problem of how to improve the quality of interpretation from the perspective of intercultural communication.The thesis will mainly research the following four questions.1. What kind of intercultural communicative barriers can rise during interpreting and how do these intercultural communicative barriers influence the quality of interpretation?2. What are the reasons for causing the intercultural communicative barriers during interpretation?3. What strategies can be used to overcome the intercultural communicative barriers during the process of interpreting?4. How can interpreters improve the quality of interpretation through enhancing their intercultural communicative competence?Taking the theories of interpretation, intercultural communication and the relationship among them as the foundation, the author observes and analyses some texts and materials on various interpreting contexts, researches into the intercultural communicative barriers during interpretation, and divides them into several categories from the aspects of verbal communication and nonverbal communication. Taking some typical examples among these texts and materials as corpus, the author analyses them in details, finds that the intercultural communicative barriers influence the quality of interpretation seriously. Based on the observing and analyzing, the author also researches the reason for causing intercultural communicative barriers during interpretation. Furthermore, the author proposes some strategies for interpreters to help they overcome the intercultural communicative barriers during interpreting, create harmonious communicative atmosphere for the participants so as to achieve better intercultural communication. At last, the author also gives some suggestions about how to develop the interpreters'intercultural communication competence and hopes it help the interpreters become successful intercultural communicators during interpretation.Apart from introduction and conclusion, this thesis is composed of four chapters.The first chapter gives a review of the relevant literature. Brief accounts are given to the origin, development and current research of interpretation in West and China. Based on the study of the overview of the research on interpretation, the author also proposes the possible innovation of the thesis as well.In chapter two the author establishes the theoretical framework of the thesis by making a brief introduction in relation to interpretation and intercultural communication. In addition, the author analyses the relationship between interpretation and intercultural communication and gets the conclusion:interpretation is an intercultural communication activity.Chapter three is the main part of the thesis. Firstly, the author analyses the intercultural communicative barriers during interpretation from the aspects of verbal communication and nonverbal communication. On one hand, in the aspect of verbal communication, the author takes culturally-loaded expressions, abbreviations, address forms of titles as research objects, makes a detailed research of the influence of intercultural communicative barriers on the quality of interpretation through observing and analyzing the typical examples in details. On the other hand, in the aspect of nonverbal communication, the author discusses how the intercultural communicative barriers affect the quality of the interpretation by analyzing concrete cases. Then based on the observing and analyzing above, the author researches the reasons for causing intercultural communicative barriers during interpretation, and concludes into five main factors that are thought pattern, geographical and natural environment, religious backgrounds, cultural values, high-context and low-context cultures. Lastly, the author proposes some coping strategies to the intercultural communicative barriers during interpretation, aims to help interpreters deal with the cultural barriers and complete the intercultural communication successfully.Chapter four makes some tentative suggestions as to how an interpreter can be a successful intercultural communicator. Interpreters should firstly enhance their intercultural awareness. At the same time, interpreters should pay attention to learn native culture. Last but not the least, interpreters should develop cultural empathy and cultural adaptation. In the conclusion, five conclusions of this research are drawn as follows:1. Interpretation is an intercultural communicative activity. Therefore, interpreters should serve as a bridge between two cultures as well as two languages.2. If the interpreter deals with the intercultural communicative barriers in inappropriate way during interpreting, it will lead to misunderstanding and even serious result. Therefore, intercultural communicative barriers indeed influence the quality of interpretation seriously.3. Culture differences is the main reason for causing intercultural communicative barriers during interpretation. In fact, thought pattern, geographical and natural environment, religious backgrounds, cultural value, high-context and low-context cultures, etc. are the origins that lead to the cultural differences between the West and China.4. Interpreters should apply interpreting strategies flexibly to deal with intercultural communicative barriers during interpretation.5. During interpreting, the interpreter should not only convey information, but also mediate cultural differences in verbal and nonverbal communicative aspects. Interpreters should shift emphasis from training of linguistic competence to cultivating of intercultural communication competence.Finally, some deficiencies in this thesis are also pointed out. Moreover, some questions that need further study are put forward.