C-E Translation Of Tourist Materials Under The Guidance Of Nida's Functional Equivalence Theory

With the rapid development of China's economy, more and more foreign tourists come to China to do business and travel. Accordingly, great importance has been attached to Chinese tourism industry, thus it is undergoing a rapid growth. As an effective medium to publicize China, C-E translated tourist materials (TMs) have become more and more important. To improve the quality of the translation of TMs may be of great help for spreading Chinese culture and thus promoting international communication.Although great improvement has been made in recent years, the translation work still leaves much to be desired. This paper, as a tentative study of exploring effective methods for translating TMs, especially cultural messages in them, on the basis of functional equivalence theory, is expected to help improve the quality of the Chinese-English translation of TMs.Rich cultural messages are contained in Chinese TMs. Chinese readers usually have no difficulty in understanding and accepting those cultural messages, but it is not the case for western readers who live with different cultural backgrounds. Therefore, for cultural messages, literal translation without considering target-language readers'receptivity and response is always unacceptable. Nida's functional equivalence (FE) theory takes effect in solving this problem. Unlike traditional translation theories, which focus on verbal comparison between the original text and its translation, Nida's FE lays emphasis on"the response to the receptor". It argues that the receptors of the message in the receptor language should respond to it in substantially the same manner as the receptors in the source language.Based on FE theory and the function of spreading Chinese culture of Chinese-English translated TMs, the translator should abide by two maxims:1. To embody cultural connotations in TMs whenever possible;2. To take the TL reader's decoding ability into consideration. Cultural messages contained in TMs should always be transferred to target-language readers, but if these messages are too difficult for them to understand, then their receptivity should be put into the first place.Through the analysis of abundant examples, the author holds that in order to improve the quality of the translation of TMs, the translator should well translate names of tourist sites, Chinese culturally-specific elements and classic quotations. Following the above two principles, the author proposes that different translation methods such as literal translation, transliteration, amplification, footnoting, analogy, adaptation and generalization should be adopted in different situations.A questionnaire about the C-E translation of TMs is conducted by the author to test the application of functional equivalence theory to the translation of TMs. The research results show that TL readers prefer those versions that can be explained by Nida's functional equivalence theory to those that can not. This proves the feasibility of the application of functional equivalence theory to the translation of TMs.In conclusion, in the practice of translation, the translator should obey the two translation principles and adopt appropriate translation methods so as to get equivalent responses between the source-language readers and the target-language readers, thus achieving the translation goal of spreading Chinese culture.