The Role Of The Interpreter In Cultural Exchange Activities

The expanding of globalization in recent years gives rise to the increase ofvarious cultural exchange activities in which interpreters are often seen. Therefore,interpreters’ role in consecutive interpreting in cultural exchange activities becomes afrequently discussed topic in interpreting studies. Theories on this topic mainly fallinto two categories: the role of interpreters should either be invisible or visible tosome degree. Decades of research found out that the first category of theories washardly to realize in view of complicated situations in cultural exchange activities; yetthe second category, though stating out the importance of interpreters’ being morevisible, didn’t state explicitly the specific roles interpreters usually play in interpretingtasks in cultural exchange activities. In this report, the author aims to probe into therole of interpreters in cultural exchange activities based on her own experience---aninterpreting task for a lecture series on Chinese culture. The whole task lasted a fewmonths, during which, the author provided interpreting in a wide range of areas, suchas Chinese religion, history, catering and Kung Fu. By recording the whole process ofthe task and the interpreter’s positioning in coping with difficulties posed by culturalcontext, the author found out that the role of interpreters in cultural exchangeactivities is by no means single; instead, it should be multiple, including mediator ofcultural differences, facilitator of class quality and activator of classroom atmosphere.Moreover, different roles are expected to be changed flexibly according to specificsituations. Hopefully, this report can provide some reference for the studies oninterpreters’ role in similar setting.