本文是一篇英语论文，笔者认为国际经贸的日益发展对商务英语口译提出了更高的要求。商务英语翻译是国际贸易中重要的交际手段。然而，商务英语口译与商务英语书面翻译有其独特的特点，对译员提出了更高的要求。尽管到目前为止，商务英语口译的理论越来越多，但大多数研究结果集中在商务英语口译和人才培养的教材或其中的一些过程，如商务谈判和文化障碍，理论支持有限。
Chapter 1 Literature Review
1.1 Previous Studies of Business Interpretation
Interpretation, as a special means of communication, has a time-honored history.One language can be represented by another language through interpreter ’ sprocessing of the language message, so that people from different language andculture backgrounds can communicate well.
According to Longman dictionary, “business” refers to the activity of makingmoney by producing or buying and selling goods, or providing services. Businessinterpreting is an oral translation between two languages in business occasions, whichis a professional interpreting activity in international business activities (He, Zhong,Xu, 2009). In today’s world, as the increase of economic globalization, enterprises ofdifferent countries all have the strong demand of expanding engagement into theworld and develop international economic communication and cooperation. What’smore, China’s accession to the World Trade Organization( WTO) has also broughtChinese enterprises great opportunities to fully enter the international market. Inglobal business trade/communication and cooperation, business interpretation playsan ever increasingly significant role among countries’ business with its risingrecognized effectiveness.
Gile (1995) pointed out the major differences of translation and interpreting aremainly include three points: 1) Translators need to know the rules of written languagewell and know how to write it, while interpreters need to know the feature of orallanguage well and know how to speak well in public. 2) Any special or worldknowledge can be gained during translation but has to be acquired before interpreting.3) Interpreters have to make decisions much faster than translators. In China, MeiDeming pointed out the characteristics of interpreting are focused on impromptu,tension, independence, comprehensiveness and diverseness (Mei, 2000).
1.2 Previous Studies of Relevance Theory
In 1986, Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson introduced Relevance Theory as aprocess of "ostension-inference": to express his intention, the speaker sends ostensivestimulus to the listener and the listener infers from the new message (ostensivestimulus) and the shared context the communicative intention of the speaker’s.Sperber and Wilson maintain that context is the prerequisite condition of textunderstanding, a psychological concept as well as part of listener’s cognitiveenvironment. Based on Relevance Theory, the communication between the speakerand the listener always complies with relevance principle, while the contextual effectsand processing efforts decide the degree of relevance. When text can have the bestcontextual effect and the listener can exert only the minimum amount of processingeffort in the meantime, then the text can realize the optimal relevance in a certaincontext. However in real communication, the listener does not necessarily pursueoptimal relevance, instead he expects adequate contextual effect brought about byrelevant texts with not much processing effort needed. Thus in this sense, anappropriate match with effect and effort can help listener to infer the speaker’s communicative intention and facilitate the success of the communication.
Chapter 2 Relevance Theory and Optimal Relevance
2.1 Concepts in Relevance Theory
Pragmatics studies meaning’s expression and change in contexts. One word orsentence can present not only its literal meaning but also its contextual meaning. Inthis regard, in 1996, on the basis of pragmatic principles from Grice, Sperber andWilson put forward Relevance Theory from the perspectives of linguistic philosophy,cognitive psychology, communication and so forth, while starting from thecharacteristics of human cognition and in-depth research on the essence of humancommunication. Relevance Theory ass
