Exploring The English Translation Of Chinese Tourist Materials-a Perspective From Cognitive Frame

With the prosperity of international tourism industry and the rapid development of Chinese economy, a huge number of foreign tourists flood into China. Thus, the translation of tourist materials is a noticeable task. More often than not, English is the major language used in international tourism activities. It is no denial that there are considerable amount of excellent C-E tourism translation texts which attract these international tourists. There still needs more improvement as far as the effectiveness of C-E tourism translation texts to attract more tourists.To write the thesis, I have read a vast number of articles about C-E tourist publicities. On the basis of the generalization, the thesis makes an attempting focus on the English translation of tourist materials from a new perspective of cognitive frame theory which few researchers have touched upon because the majority of them have probed into the tourism translation either from functionalist theory and text typology or from the intercultural perspective or from their personal experience and practice.The conveyance and effect of tourism information is of great significance in the C-E tourism translation. During this process, it necessarily involves the source language author’s intention, the target language readers’ expectation and the translator’s interpretation of the two parties. It is the mental filter in translator’s mind that facilitates the translation steps of comprehension--selection and prominence--reproduction.According to cognitive frame, linguistic expression can evoke a mental picture or a physical sensation which are stored in the human’s memory. Therefore, the task of translation is to seek in the target language the linguistic expressions which facilitate the stimulation of the cognitive frames same or similar to those in the source language. The thesis illustrates the point by the analyses of the specific5-A tourist attraction texts.The thesis consists of six chapters.In the first chapter, it introduces research background, the significance and objectives of the study and the structure of this thesis.The second chapter presents an introduction of the definition and basic functions of the tourist materials, and explores the respective stylistic features of Chinese and English tourist materials.The third chapter is a literature review, which provides previous researches on the translation of the tourist materials domestically and abroad.The fourth chapter takes the frame theory as rationale for the thesis, presenting its origin, evolvement, features of cognitive frame and the cultural similarities and differences of frame.The fifth chapter, the most crucial section in the thesis, analyzes the feasibilities of employing frame theory in tourist material translation in the level of the text.The sixth chapter is the conclusion of the whole thesis, including major findings of the thesis, the limitations and suggestions for further researches.