C-E Translation Of Tourism Public Signs From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

The 29^th Olympic Games will soon be held in Beijing and Shanghai will host the International Expo in 2010…China is more open to the world than before and millions of foreign visitors come to China. However, inappropriate Chinese and English public signs in sightseeing spots often confuse them and even bring about unwanted troubles. In order to promote effective intercultural communications and spread Chinese culture, it is urgent and necessary to regulate the Chinese-English translation of tourism public signs in China.Though they are intended to play the same roles under the same situations, both Chinese and English public signs carry their own features ranging from dictions, grammar, collocations, syntactical structures to styles. It is these different features that cause various troubles in translating. Based on Skopostheorie, by way of rich examples collected in Changzhou and an empirical study, this thesis gives a detailed analysis of the features of both Chinese and English tourism public signs, and figures out the practical strategies and methods applicable to the translation of this special genre and the essential qualities for sign-makers and translators of tourism public signs.The thesis is composed of six parts. The introduction mainly focuses on the present research background, former achievements and preview of each chapter. Chapter One offers a brief review on the development of functional equivalence theory and focuses on the skopostheorie which is the theoretical foundation of the following case analysis. The enlightenment of skopostheory on C-E translation is also discussed. Chapter Two studies public signs in scenic spots in detail: the definition, classification, characteristics and functions. Chapter Three aims at analyzing the poor translations of public signs in scenic spots by employing functional equivalence theory. With quantitative analysis of problems in C-E translation, this part distinguishes itself from other articles. Finally, this chapter concludes the potential causes the poor translation. Chapter Four focuses on the improvement of C-E translations of public signs in scenic spots by using different translation strategies. Translators as well as sign-makers are responsible for the correct forms of public signs in scenic spots. Finally, the conclusion offers a brief summary of the whole thesis. At the same time, the author points out its limitation and further study on this topic.