Signs Translation From The Perspective Of Functionalism

Translation is an activity in which people shift language and non-language communicative marks of one language to another language. Along with Chinese economy's rapidly expanding, the international contact is also getting more and more frequent, and the translation of public signs plays an incomparably vital role. We should follow three big principles: conciseness, comprehensibility, and felicity when we translate public signs. Just like Newmark said,"This kind of text must use the language that the readers can understand at a glance."The translation of public signs first should simplify as far as possible, should put the readers'cultural convention at the first place, make the translation conform to English expression custom and the thinking mode, and must choose the suitable word form to express pragmatic intention. Finally, we can make the foreigners understand the public signs at the first glance, in order to achieve the foreign exchange and propaganda goal. The intention of public signs lies in displaying its function: directing function, prompting function, restricting function, and compelling function, in order to provide conveniences of each aspects in the daily life. A good public sign can bring a better international image to China.In the 1970s, functionalism was put forward. Its representatives are Reiss, Vermeer, and Nord. They think that translation is a purposeful activity. The process of translation is decided by the intention of translation. In other words, the anticipated result decides the translation method. The skopos theory, which is the highest standard of translation, was put forward by Vermeer. The purpose of translation decides the methods and strategies of translation. Function plus loyalty, which is the most important theory of functionalism, was put forward by Nord. Function means that the translator should make a target text environment. Loyalty means that the translator should be loyal to the source language author. This paper aims to analyze the public signs translation, conclude the strategies of public signs translation, and put forward some suggestions from the functionalist perspective. According to functionalism, public signs errors can be categorized into three types: linguistic errors, cultural errors, and pragmatic errors.This thesis consists of five parts. Chapter One, a brief introduction, presents the background, purpose, significance and structure of this study. Chapter Two gives a comprehensive introduction to public signs, such as the definition, the functions, the features, and the classifications of signs. Chapter Three, the theoretical part of the thesis, introduces the background knowledge of functionalism, representatives, and important theory and so on, especially the skopos theory and function plus loyalty. Chapter Four, the key part of the paper, combines theory with practice, addresses the problems of public signs translation and puts forward the proper strategies. In Chapter Five, the conclusion is reached and some constructive suggestions are given.