A Study On Interpreter's Subjectivity In Business Interpretation In Light Of Relevance Theory

The role of the translator has always been defined as the “translation machine” in communicative activities,with the translator doing the mechanical transference between two languages.Since the interpreter is considered similarly as a mere “megaphone”,the status of the interpreter has always been slighted and ignored.However,with the deepened development of interpretative activities,the critical role of the interpreter becomes more and more prominent.The interpreter's personal definition to his role exerts a huge influence on the success or failure of business communication,the subjective position of the interpreter is dying to be recognized by all walks of life.This thesis conducts a study on interpreter's subjectivity in business communication from the perspective of relevance theory in the following aspects,namely context,ostensive-inferencial model,and optimal relevance,pointing out that interpreter's initiation of subjectivity starts from the preparation for the business occasion and lasts throughout the whole interpretation process,including both the comprehension and paraphrase phase.The peculiar characteristics of business interpretive activities also make the initiation of interpreter's subjectivity indispensable.The interpreter's adaption of various interpretation strategies climax the interpreter's use of subjectivity.This thesis also explores the reasons of interpreter's use of subjectivity from three aspects: the cultural perspective,the linguistic perspective and the mindset perspective,the necessity of interpreter's subjectivity gets enhanced even further.This thesis presents many practical cases of business communication activities,which are analyzed in great detail to illustrate the importance and necessity of interpreter's subjectivity for the construction of context and achievement of optimal relevance in order to correctly transfer the information intention and communicative intention of both parties,thus making it much more persuasive to establish the subjective status of interpreter.Therefore,the interpreter's subjectivity is deserved to be given enough attention in the translation field.