An Interpreting Practice Report On Business Negotiation Of A London-based Company

In the context of globalization, more and more foreign companies want to understand the Chinese market in order to reach a cooperation agreement with the Chinese companies through business meetings. Hence the needs on business interpreters are increasing greatly and they play a remarkably important role in business negotiations. In conventional views, interpreters are often considered as "invisible ones" or "megaphones" while the author of this report finds that there are role conflicts in interpreters when engaging in the field interpreting. As far as the author is concerned, interpreters are not only neutral "megaphones" but also multi-actors or multi-actress. Thus interpreters in business negotiations should comply with the dynamic process of interpreting by switching their roles and adjusting interpreting strategies from time to time so as to achieve the fruitful results of the business negotiation and reach a win-win situation for both parties.The report presents a detailed analysis of one business interpreting task conducted by the author for a London-based company in China Sales Mission2013. It contains five parts. Chapter one is the introduction which can be divided into research background, project profile, project objectives and report structure. Chapter two is the task description, including the clients, direct users of interpreting service, characteristics and requirements of the task. Chapter three is mainly about the process of the task, in which the author describes the pre-interpreting preparation, the interpreting process and the note-taking techniques. Besides, the author presents examples of the difficulties and solutions during the interpreting process. In chapter four, the author focuses on the roles of business interpreters. The first section of this chapter explores the research status of interpreters’role definition. In the second section, the author uses vivid metaphors to discuss the three roles of business interpreters played as "helpers","matchmakers" and "extinguishers" combined with case analysis and provides practical strategies for the field interpreting. Chapter five is a conclusion. The author shares personal experience in the business interpreting and also put forward some suggestions for interpreting studies.