An Analysis Of English Translation Of Tourism Publicity In Kaifeng From The Perspective Of The "Fusion Of Horizons"

With the fast development of economic globalization, the cultural communications among nations become more and more frequent. Tourism, as a form of cultural exchange is popular in different countries. Tourism has become one of the largest industries with the most robust developing momentum in global economy. Since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, the competitiveness of China's tourism has increased year by year, which makes this industry develop vigorously. Large quantities of overseas tourists are attracted by the unique charm of this divine land. The translation of tourism publicity is an indispensable link in external propaganda, which plays a vital role in the development of tourism industry.As one of the six ancient capitals in China, Kaifeng is rich in tourism resources. Tourism has become the leading industry in Kaifeng. The Kaifeng municipal government is planning to develop the city to be the"International Cultural Tourism City"during the period of 12th five-year-plan. To construct an international cultural tourism city, the translation of tourism publicity cannot be neglected. Due to the interminglement of the good and the bad translators, some mistakes in the tourism translation of Kaifeng impact on the tourists'travelling and damage the city's image. Therefore, it is urgent to improve the current situation of Kaifeng tourism translation under the guidance of a scientific translation theory.The post studies on tourism translation always focus on the terminals (original text or target reader) of the tourism translation, and few scholars notice the translator who connects the terminals. Gadamer's"fusion of horizons"theory puts forward the heavy responsibility of the translator in translating process and points out that the ideal translation can only be produced after the translator's integrated fusion of horizons. In other words, translation is "fusion of horizons". The translator should constantly widen his own horizon, and make it fuse with other horizons. In this process, the translator also needs to pay attention to the decisive role of the original text's horizon and the influence of the target reader's horizon. In consideration of the particularity and complexity of tourism publicity, the translator should pay more attention to the fusion of different horizons.Based on Gadamer's"fusion of horizons"theory, this thesis analyzes Kaifeng's current tourism translation. The thesis finds that if the translator does not fill the gaps between different horizons to fuse them with each other, he is unable to get the satisfactory translation. The unsatisfactory translation either fails to convey the cultural connotation of the original text, or makes the foreign tourists confused. When the translator fuses all the participated horizons together and makes use of the correct translation strategies to effectively express the translation's horizon, the ideal tourism translation can be produced and the purpose of translating tourism publicity is achieved.This paper also points out that using the"fusion of horizons"theory to guide Kaifeng's tourism translation not only supplies the effective theoretical direction in order to get the correct tourist translation theory but also intensifies the translator's sense of responsibility in translating tourism publicity. The author also hopes the"fusion of horizon"theory can give a hand to the studies on the tourism translation of other tourism cities or the studies on tourism translation carried out by other scholars.