Cross-cultural Awareness In Interpreting For Foreign Affairs And The Coping Strategies

With the quick rising of China’s international standing, the dialogue between Chinaand other nations has become ever more frequent. During this process, interpreting forforeign affairs plays a critical part, for the successful carrying on of the interpretingpractice is closely interrelated with a nation’s interests and reputation. Interpreting forforeign affairs is not only a language activity but also a cultural one—it is actually across-cultural communication process. Nations bear their cultural differences in many ways.Only when the interpreter for foreign affairs notices these cultural differences and theireffects on communication, and consciously cultivate his/her cross-cultural awareness canthe success of interpreting practice be guaranteed.There are mainly four parts in this thesis. The first part briefly introduces thedefinitions and features of interpreting and interpreting for foreign affairs, analyzing therelationship between culture and interpreting and highlighting the importance ofcross-cultural awareness to the interpreting process on the basis of Xiada interpretingmodel. Nida’s functional equivalence plays a key role in choosing domestication as themain strategy in interpreting for foreign affairs. The second part generalizes the culturaldifferences between China and the western nations in five aspects, and their effects on theinterpreting for foreign affairs. The third part discusses the coping strategies to deal withcultural discrepancies in the interpreting process—foreignization and domestication.Through the comparison between the advantages and disadvantages between these twostrategies, this thesis comes to the conclusion that domestication should be adopted as themain strategy in interpreting for foreign affairs. Because the priority of interpreting forforeign affairs is to sake for the smooth and timely communication, domestication, becauseof its adopting the language and expressions the audience is familiar with, can make theaudience understand the interpretation instantly, avoiding the possible misunderstandingsin the communication. Besides, because domestication advocates the native culture, itcould avoid the loss of mother culture if the foreign culture and alien expressions areadvocated too much. Thus domestication protects cultural diversity to a certain extend.Lastly, this thesis proposes three suggestions for the interpreter for foreign affairs tocultivate their cross-cultural awareness—intensify the learning of mother culture, intensifythe learning of foreign culture and improve the ability of cultural comparison. Interpreting is more a cultural level communicative activity than a simple bilingualprocess. In order to achieve the successful interpreting for foreign affairs, a qualifiedinterpreter should actively cultivate his/her cross-cultural awareness and promote his/hercultural sensitivity to guarantee the success of interpreting for foreign affairs.