【正文】 daily life, and thus plays a significant role in crosscultural munications. The author of this dissertation intends to disclose the basic principles in escort interpreting and proposes some practical strategies under the guidance of Skopos Theory, so as to further the study of escort interpreting as well as to promote the development of Chinese tourism industry. It is hoped that this dissertation may attract more academic concern on escort interpreting, and give some insights to the improvement of the present escort interpreting in China.Chapter Two Literature Review Present Studies on Escort InterpretingEscort interpreting most often takes place when foreign visitors are introduced to a different cultural environment, especially to some new spots or new cultural phenomenon. It involves not only interpretation, but also extremely large amount of cultural information as well as personal munication, much more than that of conference interpreting or business interpreting. Therefore, the study of escort interpreting can be done from various perspectives, such as culture, linguistics, aesthetics and education. In this research, previous studies are divided into three categories: researches from cultural perspective, researches from functional perspective, and researches from other perspectives. Research from the Perspective of Intercultural CommunicationThe two most important shifts in theoretical developments in translation theory over the past two decades have been (1) the shift from sourcetext oriented theories to targettext oriented theories and (2) the shift to include cultural factors as well as linguistic elements in the translation training models (Gentzler 2004: 70). As escort interpreting is filled with cultural elements, such as history, social customs, cuisine culture, landscaping, etc., most scholars would focus on the cultural aspect when studying escort interpreting. Dai Le (2006) studies what occurs to culture transmission while escort interpreting is conducted, and thus justifies the claim that escort interpreting is the medium of cultureoriented munication. His thesis explores escort interpreting from the perspectives of interpreting theories, culture transmission and ideal munication respectively. The author asserts that culture factors distinguish escort interpreting from other types of interpreting. The effort model of escort interpreting is brought out to show that escort interpreting operates differently from other types of interpreting: EI=Listening (Analyzing)十M(Memorizing )+C(Coordination) (the first phase)。 EI= Recalling memory triggers +Production (the second phase). In the author’s opinion, ideal escort interpreting is one that smoothes cultural transmission and intercultural munication. Several qualifications for escort interpreters to well perform the demanding job are also suggested: strong language petence, cultural proficiency, knowledge of translation and interpreting theory, encyclopedic knowledge and good interpersonal and guiding skills. Wang Yanxia (2006) says that guide interpreting is characterized by untranslatability, affected by cultural constraints and is a bination of fun and seriousness. Theories in the Intercultural Communication study are adopted to study guide interpreting. The thesis focuses on the problem of cultural untranslatability in relation to the adoption of foreignization. The author holds the view that a foreignizing translation is highly desirable, but to preserve the original culture, while dealing with the interpretation of heavily cultureloaded contents, interpreters should have a serious attitude towards it, for instance, they should insist to interpret the name of places and scenic spots with Pinyin where necessary. Since cultural constraints play an important part in guide interpreting, for guide interpreters, crosscultural awareness is inevitable. It is advocated that a petent guide interpreter should be wellequipped with knowledge about the associated cultural diversities so as to fulfill his obligation as a mediator between tourists and local culture, and adapt to the changing society to catch up on the changes of cultures. Research from the Perspective of FunctionalismAt present, there are a number of reserches that adopt functionalism in the study of tourism translation. For example, Guo Yan (2007) talks about the translation of guides’ mentaries from the perspective of Skopos Theory. Through the study of the text type, the general purpose and the translation requirements of guides’ mentaries, the author proposes that the major rules for CE translation of guides’ mentaries should be: touristoriented rule, that is, to present detailed and accurate information and make it prehensive to foreign tourists。 culturaloriented rule, that is, to promote Chinese culture and strengthen the cultural exchanges. The paper makes a critical analysis of two mentaries on Chinese gardens from the book Touring China, and came to the conclusion that the strategies of domestication and foreignization can be well bined under the guidance of Skopos Theory.Although translation of tourism literature is relevant to escort interpreting, or, in most cases, a part of preparation for escort interpreting, the processes of these two professions are quite different from each other. Thus the applications of the theory to practice also vary from each other. However, though rarely, study on guide interpreting through functionalism do exist.He Xinyi’s paper (2006) talks about guide interpreting from the perspective of both culture and functionalism. The author discusses the three rules of Skopos Theory, namely, the Skopos rule, the coherence rule and the fidelity rule as well as their relations, and analyzes different ways to overe different types of intercultural municative barriers, such as barriers of culturespecific expressions, barriers of imagery confrontations and barriers of discourse patterns. The author argues t