A Study Of Escort Interpreting In China From The Perspective Of Communication

With the development of China’s international exchanges in politics, economy and culture, the demand for interpreters is growing all the way. Domestic market of interpreting services is expanding. While in China, escort interpreting, unlike the relatively full-fledged conference interpreting, is faced with various problems in terms of the market, interpreter training and accreditation. In this context, this thesis is aimed to research on the status quo of escort interpreting in China and its communicative characteristics. Main works conducted in this thesis include:First, the question "What is escort interpreting"is answered. Based on the practical situation, a clear definition of escort interpreting is suggested. Differences between escort interpreting and conference interpreting, community interpreting and ad hoc interpreting are stated.Second, by connecting the constellation of interpreter-mediated interaction modeled by Anderson and the definition of communication, the nature of escort interpreting as an act of communication is revealed. The escort interpreter, who shares the common communication goal and undertakes the same communication task as the interlocutors, is proven to be one of the communicators. By adopting various communication strategies, the interpreter may, to some extent, control and influence the communication process. And as the communication effect is an indispensable part of communication, user perspective must be taken into consideration to assess the interpreter’s job. After all, it is the interpreter’s duty to realize the users’communication effect and goal.Third, a survey is conducted to uncover the status quo and communicative characteristics of escort interpreting. Through telephone interviews and questionnaires, thoughts and data from translation agencies, practicing escort interpreters and interpreter users are collected and analyzed. The results show that in the present domestic market, most of the practicing interpreters lack professional escort interpreting training and accreditation. And there is no price standard for escort interpreting. Interpreters and users do not share a consensus when it comes to the interpreters’duty and responsibilities. Besides, the results of the questionnaires also prove that the escort interpreters do use communication strategies when interpreting, and the users require the interpreters to work as communicators and cope with possible communication barriers, which indicates that compared with other types of interpreting, escort interpreting has its own communicative characteristics. Thus, to resolve the existing problems, the author believes that the communicative characteristics of escort interpreting should be brought to the forefront and a perspective of communication may lead to the solutions.At last, on the basis of the results and feedbacks, suggestions are provided to improve the market, training and accreditation for escort interpreters in China.The author hopes that through this research, more attention to escort interpreting can be attracted.