Strategic competence as a core of business translator’s qualification

Based on the interactional translation model, this paper discusses the role of translator’s competence in the success of translation for business. Via complex analysis of translations of advertising texts as discourse acts that are pragmatically oriented and relatively uniform in their aims, the authors establish an extralingual criterion for measuring the quality of their translation – the ability to satisfy the same cognitive/communicative needs and exert the same influence as the source texts on the audience with the different cultural background. Arguing that translator’s /interpreter’s qualifications should include awareness of the target community’s ethnical and business culture coupled with the sense of responsibility for the results of translation as an intercultural discourse act, the authors formulate implications for the formation of strategic competence in teaching professional business translators.

East Meets West: Identity and Intercultural Discourse in Chinese huaju Shakespeares

This article examines two huaju performances of Shakespeare—The Tragedy of Coriolanus (2007) and King Lear (2006), which are good examples of cultural exchanges between East and West, integrating Shakespeare into contemporary Chinese culture and politics. The two works provide distinctive approaches to the issues of identity in intercultural discourse. At the core of both productions lies the fundamental question: “Who am I?” At stake are the artists’ personal and cultural identities as processes of globalisation intensify. These performances not only exemplify the intercultural productivity of Shakespearean texts, but more critically, illustrate how Shakespeare and intercultural discourses are internalized and reconfigured by the nation and culture that consume and re-produce them. Chinese adaptations of Coriolanus and King Lear demonstrate how (intercultural) identity is constructed through the subjectivity and iconicity of Shakespeare’s characters and the performativity of Shakespeare’s texts.

Culture, Competence and Intercultural Competence: Global and Local Diversities in Intercultural Discourse

Despite the plethora of definitions and models of intercultural competence (IC), researchers still face challenges, among which bridging gaps between worldwide trends and local flows in intercultural discourse appears to be an essential goal if definitions and models of IC are to be exhaustive. The present paper summarizes trends in approaches to competence, culture and IC as presented in two types of discourse, global and local, pointing to incongruities between the two viewpoints. An analysis of intercultural research reveals that as opposed to global discourse, which is holistic in nature, local discourse is more modular. It remains an empirical question how these two discourses, and the centripetal and centrifugal forces that come with them, will permeate each other. Thus, the analysis highlights the need to enhance communication among researchers in order to manage multiple approaches, both global and local, and incorporate them into intercultural discourse.