On Sociopragmatic Equivalence In C-E Translation Of Tourism Promotional Materials

Tourism is closely related to culture and tourism promotional materials (henceforth TPMs) are used to introduce the exotic culture to those from other districts and attract would-be visitors.Consequently,many culture-specific expressions will be introduced in TPMs.At the same time,Chinese TPMs have their own text features which are different from English ones.These are the culture-specificities in TPMs and the paper discusses those cultural specificities in Chinese TPMs in comparison with English TPMs.Translation is a cross-cultural communication.The cultural elements contained in TPMs and the cultural background of the English readers must be taken into consideration in C-E translation of TPMs.The paper holds that equivalence must be realized in translation of cultural specificity and makes a study on cultural specificity from three levels,namely,the word,the sentence and the discourse level in light of sociopragmatic equivalence.By comparing the cultural specificities between C&E TPMs,the paper puts forward three models in C-E translation of TPMs,namely,the "go-ahead" model,the modulation model and the blocking model.According to the sociopragmatic equivalence theory,the translator should not be confined to the original form of the source language text(henceforth ST) but s/he is required to convey the cultural specificities of the ST to the target language readers within the framework of the target language culture.At last the paper tries to seek some feasible strategies and approaches that can be referred to in translation realizing sociopragmatic equivalence and making the expected functions and aims of the translations realized.And in light of sociopragmatic equivalence,the paper puts forward the following strategies:pinyin or transliteration,literal translation,amplification(pinyin plus explication,literal translation plus explication) and omission,analogical substitution and cultural image adaptation and modulation of discourse structure.Then the aim of attracting foreign visitors and spreading Chinese culture abroad can be realized.