A Practice Report On The Escort Interpreting For Delegation From Kansas State University In China

In recent years,the whole world has witnessed an increasing momentum of the comprehensive national strength of China.The tourism industry booms as well,more and more foreign tourists being attracted to visit China.Escort interpreters are professionals who are the medium of the communication between foreign tourists and local citizens.Their scope of translation is very extensive,involving all aspects of traveling and living in China.The working places are unexpected,including airports,banks,hotels,shopping malls and so on.In this cross-cultural communication,many factors may become barriers.Thus how the interpreter to overcome these obstacles has become a question to study on.This report is based on one of the author's interpreting practices during her study.In June 2016,the author was assigned to be an escort interpreter for a delegation from Kansas State University.In the six-day work,she was accompanied with the delegation.In Changchun,they visited the Jilin University,and the Eurasian Shopping Hall.In Beijing,they visited the Confucius Institute headquarters,the Great Wall,the Summer Palace,the Forbidden City and other tourist sites.She also helped foreign guests go shopping in the market and Nanluoguxiang Valley.They appreciated and bought paintings and calligraphy works in an artist's home.And they also did foot massage and other traditional Chinese medicine health-care activities together.The report attempts to find ways to improve the translator's performance by analyzing obstacles encountered and problems arisen in this practice.According to the transcript,the author selected three quality-affecting problems,including information loss,misinterpreting,and overuse of speech fillers.After correction about her mistakes,and consideration about the reasons,the author comes to a conclusion that there are some coping strategies she would take to improve her professional skills,which are working memory and advanced listening training,conducting terminology and encyclopedia knowledge preparation and simulation training.This practice examined the author's interpreting ability,presenting a more pellucidcognition toward interpreting.All the problems mentioned are derived from on-site interpreting practice.The author hopes that this report would help her and inspire other interpreting learners.