The Translation Of Chinese Tourist Materials Into English: From The Functionalist Perspective

The present thesis applies the functionalist theory of translation to the translation of Chinese tourist materials into English. Within the framework of functionalism, it analyzes the text type of tourist materials, their general translation purpose and the translation brief. I hold that the translation of Chinese tourist materials aims at providing information for foreign tourists with a view to facilitating their visit in China and attracting more tourists to the country so as to help promote China's tourism economy and enhance the mutual understanding between the Chinese people and other peoples in the world. Based upon this purpose, I suggest that the translator should take into consideration the text type of tourist materials and the general translation skopos and observe the corresponding translation brief when translating the Chinese tourist materials into foreign languages.Based on the functionalist theory of translation, I also analyze the English versions of some Chinese tourist materials and find that the common problems in translation mainly fall into three categories, namely, linguistic, pragmatic and cultural translation problems. By analyzing the causes behind these problems from the functionalist perspective, I find that the problems are mainly attributable to the ignorance of the purpose of translation and target readers on the part of the translator as well as his or her lack of cross-cultural awareness.With the aim to realize the purpose of translation, which is to attract foreigners to China and promote Chinese culture, I point out that the translation of Chinese tourist materials should be tourist-oriented and aim at promoting Chinese culture. Accordingly, I propose a number of translation strategies for this type of text including transliteration plus explanation, literal translation, paraphrase, addition and deletion plus generalizationIt is hoped that the present study will be of some help for the improvement of the translation of Chinese tourist materials as well as the teaching of English translation of Chinese tourist materials, and eventually be of a little help for the promotion of the development of our tourism.