A Tentative Study On The Interpreting Of Culturally Loaded Expressions In Speeches

Interpreters become a bridge of communication between the speaker and the audience who come from different cultural backgrounds. However, most of the scholars regard public speech interpreting as a part of the conference interpreting. Meanwhile, the interpreting of culturally loaded expressions in speeches receives little attention.Based on Nida’s theory of functional equivalence and relevant previous studies, the present author studies the interpreting of culturally loaded expressions in speeches.The present author classifies culturally loaded expressions into five types:idioms and proverbs, quotations, current political terms and proper names of national or cultural origins. She proposes three principles for the interpreting of culturally loaded expressions in speeches, namely, accuracy, fluency and intelligibility, and explores five specific methods:literal interpretation or literal interpretation with an elucidation, transliteration or transliteration plus an explanation, substitution with counterparts, explanation of the connotative meaning, and ellipsis.