A Report On Interpreting For 2019 Shandong-Europe Business Networking Conference

This report is based on the author’s interpreting practice at Shandong-Europe Business Networking Conference on May 20th,2019.In this event,the author provided interpreting service for the business negotiations between Chinese and German companies.While undertaking an interpreting task,interpreters may encounter various problems,the solution of which should rely on systematic approaches,rather than on pure empirical judgment calls.Relevance theory offers a systematic explanation of verbal communication from a cognitive perspective.It has been proved that translation can be properly accounted for within this framework.Therefore,this verbal communication approach with explanatory power in translation is applicable to interpreting.In this report,interpreting strategies are analyzed within the framework of relevance theory.Based on this theory,there are two successive ostensive-inferential phases in interpreting process:in the first phase,the author makes inferences on the ostensive input produced by the addresser,during which she adopts interpreting strategies including anticipation,compression and inquiring to cope with the comprehension problems;in the second phase,the author reproduces the intention to the addressee,during which interpreting strategies including paraphrasing,analogizing,supplementation and explicitation are adopted to cope with the linguistic difficulties.As a result,the modified input changes the original cognitive environment of the addressee,leading to a satisfying contextual effect.Hopefully,the experience drawn from this event can improve the author’s interpreting competence and provide implications for other interpreters,enabling them to build up the ability in utterance comprehension and expression so that they can deliver better services in interpreting tasks.