A Report On A Scenic Spots Interpreting Project

The present report is based on an interpreting project that the reporter undertook in the Qinhuai District and the Xuanwu District in Nanjing in 2015. The reporter worked as a guide interpreter for the Chinese tour guides as well as the tourists from Australia and New Zealand received by the China Travel Service Cooperation (Jiangsu). In the course of the project, the reporter was encountered with both language issue and culture-related barriers. Language issue mainly referred to the interpreter's poor language ability, including inaccurate and inflexible use of grammar and vocabulary. Foreign accents caused enormous difficulty in discriminating and comprehension. Cultural barriers concerned the communication difficulties caused by the cultural differences between the East and the West. Reflecting upon the interpreting practice, the reporter realized that to enhance her professionalism so as to meet the requirements of guide interpreting, an interpreter should take advantage of the job as a learning experience to overcome the obstacles as a whole. Firstly, the interpreter should make adequate preparations in advance, collecting details of the itinerary and such information about the foreign tourists as their nationalities and interests. Secondly, the interpreter should enhance cross-cultural awareness, in particular, obtaining flexibility in interpreting culture-loaded expressions by avoiding word-for-word translation or pinyin under the principle of the Skopos Theory, namely, to cater to the clients and achieve the effectiveness of communication. Thirdly, the interpreter should make in-time reflection, learning from the Chinese tour guides, from her own failures, and accumulating use of language and other experiences. The three effective methods the reporter discussed in this project will help novice interpreters solve problems arising in the guide interpreting process, and the data will enrich the research in guide interpreting.