A Study Of C-E Interpreting From The Perspective Of Cultural Schema

The surging reform and opening up has increasingly involved China in thecommunication with the outside world. And Chinese culture is one of its essential content.However, Kunqu Opera, the refined art which represents the Chinese national culture wasoverlooked for a long time. When Kunqu Opera has become one of the Oral and IntangibleCultural Heritages of Mankind, it connects China with the world closely. Therefore, thispaper selects the documentary600Years of Kunqu Opera with the mission of inheritingand disseminating the brilliant traditional Chinese culture to give some perspectives in thetranslation and interpretation of culture-loaded texts.Cultural schema provides the theoretical basis for the research. Interpretation is across-cultural communication. Equivalent cultural schemata of both sides are conducive tosuccessful communication. Schemata divergence and schemata deficiency will result inbarriers to understanding. Therefore, the cultural schemata of the source language must bereconstructed and reproduced in the target language by interpretation.This paper discusses the application of cultural schema theory in the C-E consecutiveinterpretation of the documentary600Years of Kunqu Opera (excerpt) and the reflectionon it. It first analyzes the interpretation difficulties about cultural schemata, including theintensive cultural information, culture-loaded words, analogies and metaphors, ancientpoetic lines and opera lyrics. Solutions are put forward, which can be divided into twoaspects. One is the preparation beforehand; the other is the on-site production. Principlesand methods are also illustrated with examples. It is hoped that this case study would helpto cope with difficulties of the interpretation practice in similar situations.