Barriers To Effective English-Chinese Escort Interpreting And Proposed Solutions

As the international community is being brought closer and closer together by the communications revolution of the last few decades and as the world economy becomes more and more interdependent, the work of translators and interpreters assumes greater and greater importance. Whether it be translation or interpreting, the ultimate goal is to facilitate cultural communication. Escort interpreting is just one type of interpreting, among many others, such as conference interpreting, court interpreting, and sign interpreting, to name but a few. However, even though it is the most frequently and widely applied form of interpreting, escort interpreting has never been really been as much in the spotlight; has never really attracted the"bravos"and"wows"that, say, conference interpreting does.Despite the fact that more and more interpreters have joined the profession, the demand for escort interpreting services still far outstrips supply on the market. The blossoming of the profession needs more theoretical research to support its further development. However, the author finds that there is a dearth of research on the subject of barriers to communication in English-Chinese escort interpreting and solutions to these problems. More research is most definitely necessary and the whole area needs to be explored in greater depth. Such research would have considerable practical value. The author proposes in this study to identify particular barriers and constraints which occur in actual interpreting practice and put forward some proposed solutions. The author believes that these issues are of profound importance in the actual practice of escort interpreting as well as in interpreting training.The thesis consists of six chapters:Chapter One is a brief introduction, which gives the reader an overview of the current thinking on the subject. In Chapter Two the author reviews the literature including interpreting in general and the classification of escort interpreting, as well as the relevant interpreting models which this paper is based on. Chapters Three, Four and Five, are given over respectively to the discussion of linguistic issues, cultural knowledge, and situational barriers. The author advances some proposed solutions. Based on the analysis in the previous five chapters, Chapter Six provides a summary of the whole thesis and presents some tentative suggestions on the actual practice of escort interpreting.