A Analysis Of Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure In Interpretation

Interpretation, as one of the cross-cultural activities, plays a critical role incross-cultural communication. The role which interpreter plays in the process ofcross-cultural communication determines that it’s the interpreter s responsibility tobuild a bridge over different cultures and language. Therefore, cross-culturalcommunication abilities, including linguistic ability, pragmatic ability and culturalability, are essential for cross-cultural interpreters. There exist all kinds of differencesin different cultures; as a result, there are also various pragmatic differences indifference languages, which determine the inevitability of pragmatic failures incross-cultural interpretation. In the field of cross-cultural pragmatics andinter-language, interpreters are supposed to consider linguistic appropriateness andcontextual adequacy out of the difference in language and cultural background betweennative language and non-native language, thus, pragmatic failures in cross-culturalcommunication can be eliminated.The author adopts the interpreting practice at the Hunan International OrchestralMusic Week as a corpus. Taking the self-experienced corpus as the researchmethodology, the author represents the practical pragmatic failures resulted fromdifferent factors in on-the-spot consecutive interpretation and makes a classifiedanalysis of the real pragmatic failures according to the relevant studies on theclassifications of pragmatic failure. Then, the author makes a thorough analysis of thecauses of pragmatic failures from the perspectives of cultural concepts, linguistictransference, cultural tradition as well as religious belief. In the end of the whole study,the author proposes that pragmatic failures can be avoided by the following ways:cultivating cultural knowledge, strengthening cultural comprehension and enhancingpragmatic competence. Only relevant coping strategies are taken into practice, canpragmatic failures in cross-cultural communication be eliminated or avoided byinterpreters to the largest extent. In addition, the thesis, through the analysis ofpragmatic failures in cross-cultural communication, aims to acquaint the author withher deficiencies in cross-cultural interpretation to make breakthroughs in her Englishacquisition and interpretation practice and provide the further researchers andinterpreters in this field with referential values.