An Interpretation Practice Report On The Accent Problem

Interpreting is currently playing an increasingly important role in China’s increasing interactions with the outside world. However, interpreters are constantly faced with challenges like cultural images in different languages, long and difficult sentences in English and some other problems which affect the performance of the interpreters, causing miscommunications and misunderstandings.This thesis, also a practice report on English to Chinese consecutive interpreting(CI), is about one of the author’s CI tasks during her internship in the China Center for International Economic Exchanges when the Managing Director of the European Bank for Construction and Development was on a visit there. During the interpreting process, the author found she was greatly affected by the speakers’ English with accents. Therefore, the author holds one of the main reasons affecting this interpreting performance is English with accents spoken by non-native English speakers. Therefore this report aims at, through case study, analyzing the obstacles arising from and the reasons behind English with accents in interpreting and proposing coping strategies accordingly in light of Gile’s Effort Models. Major strategies include changing attitude, more exposure to English with various accents and enriching background information and so on. As a result, the messages in interactions can thus be conveyed in a more precise and explicit manner, which is beneficial to improving the quality of interpreting and promoting international cultural and economic exchanges.