Functionalist Approaches To Chinese Tourism Publicity Translation

The international tourism industry in China is developing at a high speed. Especially, the 2008 Olympic Games will be held in Beijing, which will bring Chinese international tourism a golden time. As a channel for foreigners to get traveling information, tourist text plays a role of paramount importance. However, the existing situation is that many English versions of Chinese tourist texts are far from satisfactory and fail to achieve the result as intended. Therefore, C-E tourism translation deserves an in-depth study.As C-E Tourism translation aims at providing traveling information for foreign people, the intended function of the target text in the target situation is a key factor that the translator has to keep in mind in the translation process. Therefore, studying C-E tourism translation in the light of text function(s) shall be of great help to translation practice. Theories including German Skopos Theory, Nida's principle of dynamic/functional equivalence and Newmark's text-type classifications and semantic vs. communicative translation all provide very useful guidelines for tourism translation, although they are different by nature and vary in their role of guiding translation practice.Based on an analysis of functionalist theories and many examples, the author draws a conclusion: Study C-E tourism translation in the light of Skopos Theory with the supplement of Nida and Newmark's theories is useful guideline.This thesis consists of five chapters. In the introduction part, the writer gives a general account of the development of China's international tourism, and the purpose of this paper. In chapter I, the author gives general account of tourism, tourist text, tourism translation and the difficulties in translating tourism text.In chapter II, the author introduces some translation problems in the English version of tourism materials. As for the errors in translation, there exist linguistic errors, pragmatic errors and cultural errors.In chapter III, the author introduces some functionalist approaches to translation and their enlightenment to C-E tourism translation. Functionalism is a broad term and groups together a variety of functionalist approaches to translation. Functionalist approaches include not only Skopos Theory developed by some German scholars, which has played a major role in studying translation from the perspective of function or functions of texts, but also the theory of dynamic/functional equivalence put forward by American scholar Eugene A. Nida as well as English scholar Peter Newmark's text-type classifications and communicative vs. semantic translation. These functionalist approaches all shed light on C-E tourism translation.In chapter IV, the author introduces some criteria for tourism translation. Criteria for tourism translation serve as a plumb line for measuring the professional level of translation and as a good principle for the translator to stick to.In chapter V, the author proposes some methods of translation of tourism materials. Since it has been clarified that the translation methods of tourism material should respond to their informative and vocative functions, the methods are tentatively proposed and exemplified on the basis of the integral functions of the text.In a word, Functionalist approaches , particularly Skopos Theory, are really useful to guide C-E tourism translation. In the translation process, the translator should not only pay attention to the form and content of the source text, but also bear the intended function of the target text in mind. A keen awareness of the differences between Chinese and English cultures as well as distinctive features of both Chinese and English tourist texts is helpful for the translator to produce a successful translation.