Analysis Of Museum Interpreting From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Along with China’s continuous internationalizing process and the vigorous development of socialist cultural construction, our cultural exchange with foreign countries has become more and more frequent. As the collection center and the exhibiting platform of outstanding cultural achievements of Chinese civilization, museum has become the first choice for foreign tourists, scholars, experts and even heads of state for their visit to China, which has caused the growing demand for the interdisciplinary and application-oriented talents of museum interpreting. It is significant for the spread and promotion of Chinese civilization whether the museum interpreter could make the target audience fully comprehend the rich humanistic connotation of the cultural relics and displays, by precisely transmitting the message of exhibits.The purpose of museum interpreting is to spread knowledge and to carry forward Chinese civilization. According to the functionalist skopos theory, the interpreter should adopt appropriate interpreting strategies on the basis of the expected functions of interpretation. During this process, the interpreter should give sufficient consideration to the specific cultural perspective and communicative expectation of the target audience. In this light, the skopos theory can provide a good theoretical support for the research on museum interpreting practice. The thesis probes into the text type, basic rules and interpreting difficulties of museum interpreting, from the perspective of skopos theory, by analyzing the specific examples of the Chinese-English consecutive interpreting of the commentaries in Inner Mongolia Museum. The strategies for coping the museum interpreting difficulties are elaborated in the thesis, from the aspects of interpreter quality, preparation before interpreting and interpreting methods. This thesis is aiming to provide a reference for Chinese museum interpreting practice.