Communicative Approach To C-E Museum Commentary Interpreting

Museum commentary intends to facilitate visitors to get access to detailedinformation of cultural relics. A good museum commentary should not only fulfill itsvocative function of motivating visitors to think and respond after acquiring themuseum commentary, but also realize its aesthetic value as visitors enjoy the culturalrelics. Communicative approach should be regarded as the fundamental guidance formuseum commentary interpreting for the reason that three main factors, namely,nature of the readership, purpose of the interpreting and type of text exert great impacton museum commentary interpreting. Firstly, it should be stressed that target visitorsof museum commentary interpreting are different from the domestic ones. Secondly,the purposes of museum commentary interpreting are to aesthetically attract visitors;to disseminate historical facts and cultural connotations of the cultural relics, then tomake visitors to think and respond after acquiring the museum commentaryinterpreting. Thirdly, museum commentary embraces characteristics of expressive,informative and vocative texts, but the vocative feature is prominent. Therefore,interpreters should always concentrate on needs and tastes of different visitors whenconducting museum commentary interpreting. Specifically, part of museumcommentary, which has little association with the cultural connotations, the contentsof the information are as important as the expressing means of information withoutspecial cultural elements. Therefore, semantic approach may serve as auxiliaryguidance for museum commentary interpreting. In this thesis, the author analyzesmuseum commentary and its interpreting version from Shaanxi History Museum andXi’an Maydo Art Museum under the guidance of communicative approach, tries tofind out factors that may influence the interpreting effect of museum commentary.Moreover, based on communicative approach, this thesis also puts forward severalapplicable techniques which can be utilized for museum commentary interpreting.