Strategies To Overcoming Cultural Barriers In Interpreting From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Interpretation, being an important tool for current cross-cultural communication,can greatly enhance mutual cooperation and understanding among people from differentcultural backgrounds. With the dramatic increase in international and regionalinteractions in industries such as business, culture and education, and English beingthe Esperanto of the world, audience have become much more critical to the qualityof interpretation. Mere mechanical delivery of the meaning of the source text can notmeet the demand of the audience, who desire to hear the inner voices of the originalspeakers, together with the cultural connotations embedded in their delivery. As a result,an efficient and thorough exchange of meanings can be realized.However, different languages have different cultural backgrounds, which produce alot of cultural barriers. They have become difficult points for interpreters to tackle. As aconsequence, interpreters will fall into a cultural-lost phenomenon. In such acircumstance, first and foremost, it is of vital importance to strength interpreters’awareness of cross-cultural communication. Furthermore, a theory is badly needed toanalyze this phenomenon.The relevance theory (RT), as an explanatory theory, gives a new perspective andoffers a new theoretic support in tackling cultural barriers in interpretation. This essayanalyzes the problem of cultural barriers in interpretation and the feasibility ofovercoming cultural barriers. In addition, some key principles and strategies areadvocated in this regard.