A Report On Tour Guide Interpreting At The Kong Fansen Memorial Hall

With the deepening of China’s reform and opening up to the outside world,the number of international students coming to China is increasing,as is their interest in Chinese culture.In August 2022,a Namibian student studying at Liaocheng University visited the Kong Fansen Memorial Hall in Liaocheng city in an attempt to learn more about the local culture.The author,as the interpreter during the visit,transcribed the90-minute recording of the interpreting practice,and afterward with the client’s assent,based on which,completing this reflective report.Interpretation is the process of conveying the information of the source speech and processing its information structure.The focus remains the critical component that carries the most vital information,on which the producer emphasizes to attract the receiver’s attention.Therefore,it is essential for the interpreter to properly process and reproduce focus in the target speech to transmit the information in the source speech properly.Taking the information structure theory as guidance and Lambrecht’s definition of focus as a reference,this report discusses the focus loss from two levels: the propositional level and the information component level,analyzes three factors contributing to focus loss,including factors from the source speech,the interpreter,and the environment,and summarizes effective methods for improving focus from the phonetic level,the lexical level,and the syntactic level.Under the guidance of the information structure theory,the discussion of focus loss helps interpreters increase their awareness of focus transmission in interpreting practice and take corresponding measures to prevent or reduce the occurrence of focus loss to realize the speaker’s intention,thereby further enhancing the interpreting quality and the ability of the interpreter.