Pragmatic Failures In Business Interpretation-A Tentative Analysis From The Pragmatics' Perspective

As a newly-emerging and cross-cultural discipline, interpretation has attracted increased attention from scholars and researchers in recent years. With the rapid developments in business areas, business interpretation has also witnessed more and more in-depth studies from many different perspectives, such as psycholinguistics, pragmatics and cognitive science. Based on other relevant research approaches, business interpretation offers new vistas of research for linguists and scholars.For a long time, the study of interpretation has been confined to linguistic competence and interpretation skills, or we may say that it is studied only for the sake of interpretation from a single dimension. Quite often the cultural and pragmatic factors are ignored in interpretation analysis and practice, which tends to bring about wrong deciphering and comprehension of source messages, or even the serious consequence of communication breakdown. Therefore, interpretation studies from other approaches deserve our full attention.This thesis deals with the problem of pragmatic failures occurring in business interpretation, and what is special about the thesis is that the author tries to apply the research methodology of pragmatics to the analysis of their causes, with the aim of avoiding pragmatic failures in business interpreting and attaining successful communication to the largest extent. The methodologies of induction and deduction will be used in different chapters. Induction is used when the author summarizes the main characteristics of business English and the causes of pragmatic failures, while deduction is used when the author applies general pragmatic principles to the particular case of business interpretation. Two of the major principles and theories in Pragmatics --- Paul Grice's Cooperative Principles and Geoffrey Leech's Politeness Principles will be emphasized throughout the analyses. The four maxims in Cooperative Principles can guide the interpreting practice in that they help build a certain cooperative relationship between the speaker and the listener, and they also serve as an effective criterion for judging the quality of business interpretation. There are times when people deliberately violate these maxims, then Politeness Principles can be applied to"rescue"Cooperative Principles. Interpreters should bear the two principles in mind and give corresponding renditions in line with customary usage and practice. Business interpreters need to act in a conscientious manner so as to choose an appropriate interpreting strategy and avoid pragmatic failures.By analyzing the phenomenon of pragmatic failures, the author puts forward some feasible business interpretation strategies, such as pragmatic equivalent interpretation, handling fuzzy information, substitution and addition, as well as sentence structure adjustment. Then the author reaches the conclusion that business interpreters are required to possess pragmatic competence and cross-cultural awareness besides linguistic competence. Interpreters should conduct constant and in-depth analyses of the causes of pragmatic failures and try to avoid them in specific business interpretations, thus ensuring smooth and effective communications among all business parties. Business interpretation needs the input and integration of other relevant disciplines, which serve as guiding theories and greatly enhance the overall business interpretation performance.