Chinese-English Tourism Translation Strategies: A Functionalist-Based Integrated Approach

With the rapid development of international tourism in China and in many other countries in this age of globalization, Chinese-English (C-E) tourism translation is thriving and facing more challenges in the choice of appropriate strategies, thus bringing about more relevance of the study of C-E tourism translation strategies to C-E tourism translation practice. Meanwhile, along with the growth of translation studies, Chinese translation scholars are paying increasingly more attention to C-E tourism translation strategies, but most of their studies suffer from certain weaknesses in their philosophical guidelines, theoretical bases, and methodologies, and have failed in obtaining a holistic view of translation strategies, thus leading to the need of more integrated studies.With the insights already obtained in sight, the present study intends, by adopting a dialectical systemic view of translation as its philosophical guidance, the German functionalist theory of translation as its theoretical basis, and an integrated methodology using both theoretical and empirical, both deductive and inductive procedures, to conduct a more integrated study of the strategies of C-E tourism translation so as to arrive at a more systematic understanding of such strategies.According to the dialectical systemic view of translation formulated by Jia Zhengchuan, translation is a complex human activity system composed of source text writer, translator, target text reader, source text, target text, strategy and many other components, existing in and is conditioned by situational and socio-cultural contexts; among them, translation strategies are closely connected with all the other components or contextual factors of translation. According to the German functionalist theory represented by Hans J. Vermeer, translation is a purposeful activity composed of source text producer, sender, translation initiator, translator, target text receiver, source texts, target text, strategies and many other factors; among them, the choice of translation strategies is determined mainly by the purpose of translation, target text receiver, and the target culture. Since C-E tourism translation is a sub-category of translation in general, the above theory of translation strategies is necessarily applicable to C-E tourism translation. It is therefore plausible to deduce from the general theory of translation strategies, under the guidance of the systemic view of translation, an understanding of C-E tourism translation strategies as follows: C-E tourism translation strategies are an integral part of the process of translation and its situational and socio-cultural contexts, and thus vary according to the purpose of translation, the target text reader, and the target culture.Also based on the functionalist theory of translation, and using the above understanding as a framework, we can arrive at the following specific understanding of the strategies of C-E tourism translation. In the process of C-E tourism translation, the translator should always refer to the purpose of translation, the target text reader, and the target culture and flexibly select and use various strategies such as amplification, diction, adaptation, abridgement, explanation, omission, compilation, explanation, and analogy.The result of this study may help to enhance the translator's ability to flexibly select and use strategies and may thus improve the practice of C-E tourism translation. Hopefully, it may also help to compensate for the weaknesses of the existing studies of C-E tourism translation strategies. The present study is therefore of both practical and theoretical significance.