Error Analysis Of The Translation Of Chinese Public Signs And The Strategies Of Their Translation

The fact that more and more foreigners come to China on business or for a tour makes the translation of public signs important and necessary. However, it is not an easy job for a translator to translate the signs correctly. As a result, erroneous translations can be seen everywhere. Therefore, the study of public signs and their translation becomes an urgent and significant task.This thesis aims at making an overall study of Chinese public signs and their translation on the basis of error analysis. In the thesis, some of theories and linguistic rules are applied for the purpose of identifying translation errors and providing possible solutions.The thesis groups into six chapters.Chapter one is an introduction, including the current situation of public signs, the aim and significance of the study, the necessity and urgency to translate them into English, and the methodology.Chapter two sheds light on the linguistic theories in this field such as error analysis, language transfer. The author attempts to explore the deeper reasons of the errors of public signs. Factors such as language and culture and thinking habits exert an influence on the second language acquisition of translators and later on their translation.Chapter three is the general introduction of public signs. It discusses the definition, the classification and functions of public signs. As a particular variety of English, Chinese public signs have their own stylistic features and differ from English in many ways.Chapter four begins the analysis of different types of errors from the perspective of language and culture by extensive examples including some photographs. Linguistic errors are made on the level of vocabulary, grammar, syntax and semantics, whereas cultural errors tend to be made due to the lack of cultural background knowledge, such as misused words, inharmonious tone, pragmatic failure. All the errors are made mainly because of different characteristics of Chinese and English. Of course, translators also have to be partly responsible for them.Chapter five deals with the translation of public signs. Under the guidance of translation theories at home and abroad, the author puts forward the"receptor-centered"principle (the translation version must be readable and as close to the original as possible) and the four necessary steps in the process of the translation of public signs. In order to achieve the evocative effect and perlocutionary force, a translator can employ various techniques to polish his version on the basis of faithfulness to the original, such as literal translation, free translation, amplification, omission, restructuring. In the translation of public signs, Chinese pinyin should be employed to translate locality names so as to realize a single Romanization system according to Guo Jianzhong (2005: 34).Chapter six concludes the thesis. It is hoped that all the people including scholars and translators will identify the errors and make a contribution to the improvement of the translation of public signs.