Functionalist Translation Of Tourist Texts In Hunan

With the development of cross-cultural communication, tourism culture has played a significant role in the cultural exchanges. In order to promote the development of tourism and help foreigners know Chinese culture well, a number of translators strive to study the tourist text translation. However, due to the limitations of research, tourist text translation is still largely unexplored in the field of translation studies. In view of this situation, the author attempts to study tourist text translation within the framework of functionalist translation theory.Functionalist translation theory is of theoretical and practical significance to the tourist text translation, which actually belongs to a kind of practical translation. As an approach different from traditional equivalence theory, functionalist translation theory provides a new perspective for the researches of translating strategies in tourist publicity texts. The theory is function-oriented, which emphasizes the communicative functions of the target texts. The English translation of Chinese tourist texts has the function of promoting Chinese culture and attracting more foreign visitors. Under the guidance of the functionalist translation theory, translators could adopt flexible strategies to achieve intended goals. The argument in this paper is that the traditional equivalence theory is not applicable to the tourist text translation. The major part of this thesis consists of four chapters.In the introduction, the author gives a general account of the development of China's international tourism and Hunan tourist situation. Current studies on Chinese tourist text translation are also discussed. Furthermore, current study on Hunan tourist text translation and its reasons are briefly introduced. Finally, the author makes clear the purpose of writing this thesis.Chapter 1 presents the background and development of the German functionalist translation approach, which is also the theoretical basis of the thesis.Chapter 2 draws a definition and classification of tourist texts, and then analyses the main functions of tourist texts, followed by the statement of major concepts of functionalist approach in tourist text translation.Chapter 3 offers a contrastive analysis of the Chinese and English tourist texts.Chapter 4 is about application and illustration. The culture-oriented principle and tourist-oriented principle are proposed to guide tourist text translation according to functionalist translation theory. Then, the author analyses the strategies of translation with suggestions for improving translation quality.The final part is the conclusion, in which the author states the significance and limitations of this thesis. Under the guidance of functionalist translation, translators can follow culture-oriented principle and tourist-oriented principle in adopting flexible strategies to translate tourist texts. Proper translations are needed to upgrade Hunan tourism and its economy.All in all, tourist text translation should never be a slavish imitation, but culture-oriented and tourist-oriented. The translator is supposed to grasp the useful and meaningful information, and then produce a natural and idiomatic version.