Chinese-English Translation Of Public Signs In China

Public signs is a phrase which is adopted from English language to refer to the concept of 公示语 that is right under discussion in this paper. Public signs here in this dissertation refer to those offer information publicly, meanwhile, in a short and brief way. They may bear some of common characteristics as advertisements, but the former cover a much wider range of things and last for a much longer time and they bear obviously different purposes. Public signs offer a kind of warning, direction, notification and other closely related literal or graphical information; while advertisements are created out of commercial reasons and are supposed to lead to business profit.As public signs are commonly used in our daily life, the translations of public signs are also commonly seen in our daily life. Especially at present, with China's fast development, and with China's entry into WTO, China's host of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, and a lot more other international events held in China, more and more international tourists from all over the world coming to China to travel, study, do business...all these international practices and activities make the public signs essential. They are essential to all the foreign people coming to China: from governmental officials to entrepreneurs, from scientists to overseas students, from artists to sportsmen. Public signs in China play the role more than a "name card" of a city but the international image of China. By writing this dissertation, the author aims at drawing more attention in the translation of public signs and it serves as an introduction so as to inspire more valuable researches in this field.To the exclusion of its introduction part and conclusion part, this dissertation consists of five chapters, attempts a multi-perspective study of C/E translation of public signs in China.Chapter One starts with the review on translation of public signs here in China. Despite of the importance of C/E translation of public signs, it also refers to the present state of sign translation, with the perspectives from public campaign as well...