The Role Of Interpreters In Liaison Interpreting

This paper is a practice report based on the author's hands-on experience in the Eighth China Horse Fair(CHF),during which the author served as a liaison interpreter for Peter Wikes,CEO of Vale Brothers Ltd.Role Theory provides the major theoretical support for this paper.After a brief introduction in the first Chapter,the author introduces Role Theory,Role Consciousness and Role Expectation in the second Chapter,so as to let readers have a better grasp of the role of liaison interpreters.Based on case analysis,the author then points out that the major problems confronting liaison interpreters are role conflicts,and then analyzes the reasons(role strain and role malposition)and offers suggestions.In case description,this paper highlights preparations beforehand and on-site adjustments.In particular,the author depicts how to handle potential misunderstandings,thus stressing the importance of preparations on reducing role strain.In case analysis,the author puts forward three common roles of liaison interpreters: lubricant,cultural mediator and expert.Their differences are subtle,and interpreters might need to switch freely between them,or even take on more than one role at a time.Apart from those three roles,at exhibitions,interpreters often have to take another role,i.e.“sales assistant”,which is the very reason for role malposition.Following conclusions can be drawn from this paper.First,preparations are essential for the success of an interpreting task.Liaison interpreting often lasts more than one day.Should any mistake occur during this process,the interpreter would be duty-bound to correct it in a timely manner.Second,interpreters should build role consciousness.In special occasions such as exhibitions,interpreters could only act as “sales assistant” with the permission of clients,and the role of “sales assistant” should not override that of “interpreter”.Third,instead of merely taking “faithfulness” as the sole criterion to measure whether or not a liaison interpreting task is successful,the key criterion should be whether the interpreter meets clients' expectations of different roles or not.