On The Importance Of Cultural Awareness In Liaison Interpreting And Its Application

With the rapid development of globalization and the increasingly frequent cultural exchanges among different nations, people from different parts of the world begin to realize an increasing need to communicate with each other. As a bridge for inter-cultural communication, interpreting has attracted more and more attention internationally. Besides transferring the meaning, it also serves as a communicative activity that exchanges underlying cultural connotations. Therefore, apart from language competence and professional skills, an interpreter is required to have acute cultural awareness as well because the cultural gap can greatly influence communications and people's mutual understanding.Compared with other modes of interpreting, liaison interpreting is quite unique in its interactive nature, unpredictable discourse and varied working settings. Moreover, due to the physical presence of liaison interpreters, they inevitably play more active and interactive roles than simultaneous interpreters in the booths and other interpreters. That's why they will take on more responsibilities than other interpreters do. However, though existing far earlier than other modes of interpreting, liaison interpreting has made comparatively few contributions to the theoretical research and studies. Therefore, studies on liaison interpreters'cultural awareness are of great value and necessity.This thesis examines the liaison interpreting from an inter-cultural perspective, analyzes the importance of cultural awareness in this communicative process, and explores some typical examples to see how the cultural awareness is applied in liaison interpreting. In this thesis, the author hopes to help facilitate the challenging process of liaison interpreting.Apart from the introduction and conclusion, there are mainly three parts in the thesis. The author begins with a brief historical review of the definition and the development of interpreting, the study of liaison interpreting, and the studies on interpreting from the cultural perspective both at home and abroad. A comprehensive definition and some salient characteristics of liaison interpreting are listed in the second part. Then the author further explores the role that cultural awareness plays in liaison interpreting from various aspects. In the third part, the author gives some examples of the application of cultural awareness in liaison interpreting in order to illustrate the significance of keen consciousness of cultural gaps during inter-cultural communication. In a word, liaison interpreting requires great academic attention due to its uniqueness of working mode. In order to act as an effective bridge between two parties, a liaison interpreter should not only strengthen the language competence and professional skills, but, more importantly, promote the cultural sensitivity and inter-cultural awareness.