A Case Study on the Impact of Mother-Tongue Negative Transfer on Chinese-English Interpretation

Abstract

Interpreting is not only a simple conversion of language, but also a cross-cultural activity which aims to resolve language barriers and cultural contradictions in communication. How to avoid the interference of mother tongue becomes a focus of interpreting studies. This paper is a case study on the impact of negative transfer of mother-tongue on C-E (Chinese to English) interpreting. Twenty graduates from interpreting majors of Sichuan University were chosen to take a test of C-E interpreting full of Chinese features. Test results show that there are different degrees of negative transfer of mother-tongue in C-E interpreting, which have some negative impact on cross-culture communication. By studying the different types of negative transfer in the test results, some suggestions are given on how to reduce the impact of the negative transfer of mother-tongue from a broader view. We have every reason to believe that as more and more people consciously avoid the negative transfer of mother tongue in their C-E interpreting practices, they will greatly improve their interpreting quality and achieve successful cross-cultural communication.