Comprehension Barriers Caused By Cultural Differences In Escort Interpreting And Coping Tactics

Since the implementation of the strategy of West Development, Chengdu, as the center of western region, has made dramatic advancements both socially and economically. The growing influence of Chengdu in the international arena has been attracting more and more foreigners to visit this city or make investment here. For example, the Brisbane delegation led by Graham Quirk, the mayor of Brisbane, visited Chengdu for further cooperation between Brisbane and Chengdu.Under such circumstance, qualified interpreters, including escort interpreting, are badly needed. Escort interpreting always involves receiving and seeing off guests, itinerary arrangement, business visitation, tourist receiving, etc. Because of its flexibility, it is wildly used when receiving foreign guests.This thesis is a travel escort interpreting report about receiving the Brisbane delegation during their visit in Chengdu, and mainly discusses the problems caused by cultural difference and the strategies of coping with the problems with several of cases during this mission as examples. The thesis is divided into three parts:the preparation work before the task, the cultural factors that may influence the interpretation and their coping tactics, the conclusion. Part One, the preparation, is related to some glossaries and terms, the history and development of some scenic spots such as Eastern Suburb, Mount Qingcheng and the surroundings of those scenic spots. Part Two introduces the cultural factors influencing escort interpreting, from the perspective of historical factor, custom factor, thinking pattern and other cultural factors. Here the author introduces the cultural differences between eastern and western countries, especially between the two cities-Chengdu and Brisbane in Australia. This part is conductive for a better understanding of cultural differences and the importance of cultural differences in escort interpreting. Part Three illustrates the coping tactics adopted in the escort interpreting, such as transliteration and liberal translation, foreignization and domestication, addition and omission. The translation theories of formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence as well as foreignization and domestication are applied to provide theoretical guidance for the analysis in the thesis. Based on the above three parts, the author has drawn a conclusion and sincerely hopes that this thesis will provide some references for the practice of escort interpreting.