Translation Variation In C-E Tourist Material

The C-E translation of tourist material has been a principal medium for the publicity of Chinese culture and an essential element in attracting foreigners to travel in China. In view of the particularity of C-E translation of tourist material, the thesis is intended to make the application of translation variation a necessity in the translating process for achieving the desired purpose.As a highly practical type of writing, tourist material is mainly designed to provide readers with tourist information attractive enough to arouse the interest in them and ultimately, materialize their visit. Accordingly, any translated version unable to achieve its functional effect would be a complete failure. Hence, while applying a theory to C-E translation of tourist material, it is essential for the translator to take its uniqueness into full consideration.Due to the linguistic and cultural differences, tourist material of the two languages differs in structure, style and expression of culture. Any tourist material successful in the source language and culture could not produce the same effect or even lead to a complete failure in target language and culture if mechanically rendered. Traditional translation theories, which lay emphasis on the strategy of truthfulness and equivalence, seem increasingly ineffective in the functional translation of tourist material. In order to achieve the maximum functional effect of the ST in TT, the author of the thesis claims that translation variation is a very effective approach.The theory of translation variation has been arousing much controversy in the translation circle and an ever-growing number of scholars have carried out studies on it. Translation variation is put forward as a theory contrary to full translation, with its major principle of consciously modifying the original in translation to meet specific needs of specific readers. From a general survey of the application of translation variation, which develops from contingency to consciousness, especially in the practical texts like advertisements, foreign publicity, tourist material, sci-tech texts, under the circumstances of globalization, we can find translation variation is all the more significant. However, the theory has seldom found application to the translationof tourist material. The thesis, therefore, attempts to carry out a situdy on this field.The attempt made in this thesis is expected to be a spur to more comprehensive and profound researches in this area and eventually it is hoped that it could be some help and guidance for the practice of C-E tourist material translation.