Strategies For Interpreting Science Activities:A Case Study Of The Q&A Session In American Museum Of Natural And History From The Perspective Of Interpretive Theory

With the rapid development of science and technology,people around the world now can communicate with each other and gain access to new scientific information through various channels.Public science activities have become popular because of their interesting and informative content.In these activities,written and oral translation plays an important role in helping spread knowledge.However,the interpreting jobs for science and technology activities are highly professional and usually involve abundant glossaries and various scenes.In addition,there are sometimes differences between two cultures and two forms of expression.All these make it challenging to deliver a clear,precise and concise interpretation for the public audience,yet make it a subject worth researching for interpreters.This report conducted a case study of a Q&A session in the American Museum of Nature and History under the guidance of the Interpretive Theory of Paris School.The case has wide topic coverage,fragmented language,and rich content,which all pose a challenge for the interpreter.This report explored and analyzed difficulties the interpreter encountered and came up with strategies for each difficulty on the basis of the Interpretive Theory.The major difficulties include redundant information,scientific language,background knowledge,imperfect words and taboos.Overall,to resolve the difficulties,the interpreter focused on the information both inside and outside of the language,comprehended the speaker at the meaning level,realized the “de-verbalization” and finally re-expressed the speaker's meaning in the target language.The strategies worked out are: simplification,structural adjustment,supplemental information,appropriate modification,and circumvention,which can help solve the difficulties and optimize the interpretation.This report studied a case of public science interpreting,explored the possible difficulties and came up with strategies and conclusions.It is hoped that this report can provide some insights into the interpreting cases in related fields.