Chinese-English Communicative Translation Of Public Signs Based On Text Typology

The 2008 Olympic Games has been held successfully in Beijing, and the 2010 World Expo will be held in Shanghai. China's exchange with the outside world is becoming more and more frequent. In order to facilitate communication with foreigners, publicity materials are usually rendered into English, especially public signs-symbols or words used to provide direction, prompt, restriction and compulsion. Bilingual public signs can be seen in most cities, especially the big ones, such as Beijing and Shanghai. They play an important role in our daily life and public communication. Besides, public signs are the first thing foreigners in China watch and will affect their impressions on China. Therefore, they represent the image of the city, even the country.However, there are a lot of public sign translation errors in practical translating. This not only brings inconvenience to foreigners but also damages the image of the city, even the country. So it becomes necessary and urgent to improve the translation quality of public signs. In order to avoid the translation errors, the principles and methods of public signs translation should be studied.In dealing with public sign translation, Newmark's translation theory, which mainly consists of two parts:text typology and two translation approaches-communicative translation and semantic translation, is inspiring. The core idea of Newmark's translation theory is that all texts can be classified into three types according to the functions of language-informative, expressive and vocative; the text type decides the translation strategy. Informative and vocative texts emphasize the effect they produce on the readers, so communicative translation, which is done at the readership's level, should be applied. While, the core of the expressive text is the author's feeling irrespective of any response, therefore such texts should be translated at the author's level. That means translation should be as close as possible to the source text. In other words, semantic translation should be used in translating an expressive text.Based on Newmark's translation theory, the author analyzes the text type of public signs and explores the relevant translation approach in this thesis. Public signs are used to provide direction, prompting, restriction and compulsion, and the ultimate purpose of them is to call upon readers to act, think or feel, in fact to "react" in the way intended by the text. According to Newmark's translation theory, they should fall into the vocative text and be translated communicatively. Under the frame of communicative translation, the author puts forward three main specific translation methods in dealing with C-E translation of public signs-borrowing, adapting, and re-creative translation.Public sign is an important component of the language environment, human environment of an international city and an international tourist destination. Taking the significance of public signs in public and tourists' life and the influence on the international image of a country into account, more and more attention should be paid to the translation quality of public signs. The author sincerely hopes the perspective adopted in this thesis will be of some use for eliminating errors and improving the translation quality of public signs.The thesis consists of six chapters. The introduction deals with the importance of sign translation, the literature review of sign translation study and the structure of this thesis. Chapterâ… is a general introduction about public signs, including the definition, the social functions and the characteristics of public signs. A detailed introduction about Newmark's translation theory-text typology and communicative translation and semantic translation-is given in Chapterâ…¡. In order to avoid translation errors, it is necessary to make clear the current situation of Chinese-English sign translation. So the existing problems in sign translation are discussed in Chapterâ…¢. In Chapterâ…£, based on Newmark's text typology, the text type of public signs is identified. This classification decides that communicative translation approach is appropriate for the translation of signs. Under the frame of communicative translation approach, several feasible translation methods are introduced. Finally a conclusion is drawn in the last chapter.