A Study Of Cultural Vacancy In C-E Consecutive Interpretation---from The Perspective Of Cultural Schema

Nowadays, with the development of the globalization, interpretation is playing a more and more important role in intercultural communication. Consecutive interpretation is known for its effectiveness and considered to be a complicated bilingual communicative act. As the two important layers of translation activity, language and culture are interrelated and indispensible in consecutive interpretation.In this thesis, the author takes a cultural perspective on schema theory to analyze the process of consecutive interpretation and to explore the functions of the cultural schema in consecutive interpretation, especially in the situation of cultural vacancy. Cultural vacancy refers to the cultural elements that exist in one culture but missing in another culture. In the process of Chinese-English consecutive interpretation, interpreters may face cultural vacancy from time to time. The author also applies a case study to interpretation learning in order to improve the interpretation effect.Based on schema theory, this thesis analyzes the facilitative functions of cultural schema in interpreting as a cross-cultural communicative activity. It states the factors of cultural schema and the transformability of cultural schema. Then, it introduces the different categories of cultural vacancy, which is considered to be a barrier of consecutive interpretation. The author takes the15students who are taking a systemic consecutive training in Hubei University as a case study. The author taped the interpretation activity of the students and then analyzed the interpreters’treatment of the cultural vacancy. Based on the analysis, four coping strategies are put forward to facilitate the interpreters’ performance with better preparation of cultural vacancy.