| With rapid development of economic globalization, international exchanges become increasingly frequent. This leads to a pressing social need for talented personnel who have a strong intercultural communication competence (ICC). How can business English teaching at higher vocational schools meet the needs of our social and economic development? How to enable the students at higher vocational schools to enhance their intercultural communication awareness (ICA) and competence? Both English teachers and current business English teaching should answer these questions.This thesis explores how to cultivate the students'ICA and how to enhance their ICC in the teaching of business English translation at higher vocational schools, as translation is the most important means of intercultural communication. It is the most fundamental task of translation to convey thoughts and cultural information as well as to change linguistic codes. If cultural differences are not put across, translation will sometimes become invalid or ineffective, for translation is a kind of communication between two cultures.The thesis first briefly reviews the history of intercultural communication, and surveys researches on intercultural communication in the teaching of foreign languages at home and abroad, which demonstrates that intercultural communication has a wide range of guidance and practical value for foreign affairs translation, foreign trade, tourism, foreign language teaching and cultural exchanges. But the writer finds that there are very few studies on the teaching of higher vocational English, and even fewer studies on the relationship between higher vocational English teaching and intercultural communication. The writer thinks that in the teaching of English we should lay emphasis on cultivating students'ICA in order to improve the students'English proficiency and enhance their ICC.The thesis then expounds the purpose and significance of the research. In the teaching of business English translation, the students are expected to broaden their cultural horizons, raise their ICA, and strengthen their ICC. In other words, they are supposed to correctly comprehend the relationship among language, culture and communication. However, there exist various questions in the current teaching of business English translation. The thesis analyses the status quo of and the problems with students, teachers and teaching materials, pointing out that it is most urgent to cultivate and enhance the students'ICA in business English teaching.Then how should we achieve this goal? The author focuses on the teaching of business English translation. In order to arouse the students'ICA, we concentrate on the discussion of the differences between Chinese and Western cultures. In addition to teaching common translation skills and strategies, we make every effort to train our students in learning how to translate idioms; how to translate business advertising texts, including trademarks and trade names; and how to translate foreign trade correspondences, business contracts, business specifications and other business discourses. The thesis discusses six major cultural factors that interfere with business English translation: geography, history, religion, modes of thinking, values and customs. Also, it investigates five translation strategies under the background of cultural differences: literal translation, liberal translation, transliteration, borrowing and employing corresponding expressions. Finally, the thesis attempts to demonstrate how to cultivate the students'ICA by implementing a teaching plan of"Translation of Trademarks".The thesis is expected to help English teachers, including the writer himself, to reflect their own views on culture and to clearly understand their own roles in English teaching so that they may strive to cultivate their students'ICA and to enhance their ICC, thus enabling them to become talents to meet the requirements of our society.
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