An Adaptation Theory-Based Study On Chinese-English And English-Chinese Translation Of Tourist Publicity

In recent years, the fast-growing tourist industry roars to the third industry in the whole world. The huge income and benefits brought about by tourism lure more countries to develop this newly flourished industry. China is a great country with 5000 years of history. Its magnificent culture and historical sites attract millions of foreign tourists to pay a visit each year. Especially with the upcoming of 2008 Olympic Games and Shang Hai World Exposition held in 2010, tourism in China will boom fast accompanying the flourishing of related industries such as hotel, transport and entertainment. According to the statistics of World Trade Organization, by 2020 the number of tourists to China will reach 16 billion. China will become the world's top tourist destination and the fourth major source of tourists. Comparatively speaking, the development of translation on tourist publicity is relatively low. Linguistic, cultural and pragmatic mistakes in the tourist publicity hamper the cross-cultural communication and damage the image of the destination. Therefore, the author proposes an adaptive translation model under the framework of Verschueren's Adaptation Theory in the hope for providing suggestions for the tourist publicity translation both in theory and practice. On this basis, the author offers several active and passive adaptation translation strategies.Chapter one is a literature review of relevant studies on tourist publicity. Firstly, definition, classification and functions of tourist publicity are clarified to confine the scope of the research. Secondly, the author reviews the development of tourist publicity translation at home and abroad. Thirdly a review of adaptation theory is offered. Meanwhile the author summarizes the present problems in the tourist publicity translation.Chapter two is the theoretical framework. Pairs of important concepts in adaptation theory, such as making choices, three key notions and four angles of investigation are analyzed to see how they impact the translation process. At the end of the chapter, the author proposes her translation model under the framework of adaptation theory and points out the theoretical and practical significance.Chapter three accounts for the adaptability in tourist publicity translation. With the assumption that tourist publicity is adaptation to target tourist texts'structural, physical, mental and social worlds, the author conducts a survey on translation of scenic spots mainly located in the author's hometown Shan Dong Province to testify that tourist publicity translation is an encompassing conversion involving a series of correlates. Most of the results are compatible with the author's expectancy, providing the feasibility of exploring the tourist publicity translation under Verschuren's adaptation theory. Then the author specifies the tourist publicity translation in respects of structural, physical, mental and social world by use of bilingual translation versions. She finds that adaptability plays an important role in translating the above correlates. In the end, she puts forward her translation model of tourist publicity under the framework of Adaptation Theory.In the last chapter, the author proposes specific translation strategies like transliteration, adding, omission, analogy and other translation methods. Those strategies demonstrate the translators'passive and active adaptation to the foreign tourists'linguistic, physical, social and mental settings.In the conclusion part, the author summaries major findings in the thesis and points out their implications and limitations. There are four creative points in the thesis: Firstly, she proposes a new adaptive translation model, which will have a great significance in both translation theory and practice. She also finds that tourist publicity translation is multi-dimensional conversion adaptive to the target texts'structural, physical, mental and social worlds as well as readers'feedback to the versions. On that occasion, translators can consciously employ active and passive translation strategies like transliteration, adding, deleting and adaptation to mend for the cultural losses. Lastly, the dynamic language property and variant socio-cultural settings lead to people's different appreciation for the same version at different periods. As a result, the versions need to be handed out to the readers to evaluate whether they are appropriate or not. Readers'feedback is an effective tool to reflect the versions'quality. The aim of proposing the model is to instruct the tourist publicity translation theoretically and practically as well as to guide for translation of other genres, for instance, advertisement translation, law translation and literary translation. Applying the active and passive translation strategies will give insights into the translation activities. In addition, this model can also shed light on the translation teaching practice.