A Study On The Subjectivity Of Business English Interpreters From The Perspective Of Interpretive Theory

After entering the 21st century, China has witnessed unprecedented dramatic development in economy, integrating herself into the globalization in a more profound and deep-going way. China’s economic activities and business exchanges with foreign countries have been rising markedly, which brings substantial business English interpreting activities in China. As an indispensable part of the business English interpreting, business interpreters function as not only the conveyor of messages but also the mediator between different cultures. Nowadays, growing interpreters realize the necessity for them to employ appropriate strategies and skills actively and creatively depending on specific situations. Furthermore, it is unavoidable for business interpreters to resolve disputes and even conflicts to guarantee the success of business interpreting. Hence, interpreters should not be viewed completely neutral. On the contrary, interpreters’ subjectivity should be exerted in an uttermost way throughout the whole process.As a core theory for interpretation, the interpretive theory holds that there are three procedures in the process of interpretation:1) comprehension of sense,2) de-verbalization, meaning that the linguistic meaning are forgotten with non-verbal sense remaining present without any linguistic support,3) the re-expression of this sense in other language. Therefore, it is the non-verbal sense that an interpreter needs to convey rather than linguistic meaning of the language. The paper probes into the business English interpreters’ subjectivity based on the triangular model of interpretive theory from the following three aspects:inevitability, creativity and passivity. Namely, it delves into the inevitability of business interpreters’subjectivity, the manifestations of business interpreters’ subjectivity and also the factors that restrain business interpreters’ exertion of subjectivity by analyzing the transcribed business English interpreting activities. Ultimately, the author endeavors to guide the exertion of business interpreters’ subjectivity by making proposals in terms of professional knowledge, cross-cultural communicative competence, and memory method at de-verbalization stage as well as interpreting skills at re-expression stage so as to ensure the success of business English interpreting and promote business affairs smoothly.