Cultural Difference In Chinese-English Guide Interpreting

With the development of globalization, more and more tourists from the West are coming to China, hoping to approach China's unique culture in a closer way. The rapid growth of tourism industry in China creates the need for guide interpreting to facilitate tourist-host interaction. However, due to the differences in historical background, geographical environment, social customs, religious beliefs, value systems, etc, the cultural difference between China and the West is inevitable, which can pose a great challenge to the Chinese-English guide interpreter. To properly deal with the cultural difference in Chinese-English guide interpreting is of much significance to the promotion of the Chinese culture to the western world.Through analysis of the cultural difference between China and the West and its influence on Chinese-English guide interpreting, this paper aims to explore the most appropriate interpreting strategy so as to effectively address the cultural difference and successfully realize intercultural communication.This paper first introduces the unique features of guide interpreting as one special category of language interpreting, concluding that the most remarkable feature of guide interpreting is the cultural elements involved. Then by exploration of some important research theories about guide interpreting, it explains the role of the guide interpreter as a cultural mediator. After that, this paper summarizes the cultural difference between China and the West from five aspects and puts forward two interpreting strategies, focusing on foreignization since it will retain the cultural image of the source language. Finally, the author makes a suggestion of using four translation methods in Chinese-English guide interpreting.