Cultural Default In English-Chinese Interpretation:Analysis&Solutions

Cultural default is a kind of cultural pre-installation, which refers to the economized words under a shared culture and background. Researches and reports have showed that the cultural default is a tough and energy-consuming part in interpretation as limited time used not only to convey the meaning in plain words but to rebuild the "cultural vacancy". Thus, many interpreters finish their work with misunderstandings and mistakes.Though there are a lot of scholars dedicated to studies of cultural default, most efforts are poured into the studies of basic theories and cultural default occurring in translation while little attention is paid to the application of cultural default theories, especially the application to English-Chinese interpretation. Based on a theoretical framework named "optimal relevance", this paper has worked out two specific methods named "Equivalence" and "Reconstruction" for analyzing and processing of cultural default in English-Chinese interpretation so as to enrich the studies of cultural default. This paper has also figured out that interpreters should free themselves from cultural constraints and try to meet the expectation of audience with proper words and sentences. Besides, there is no such example before as holding a discussion on the benefit brought by interpreter’s enhancement to deal with cultural default.After employing some research findings of selected fields, this paper has on one hand described the cultural default with some detailed examples. On the other hand, by analyzing the specific examples in2012White House Correspondent’s dinner, the paper has put forward some solutions and showed its practical value.