Communicative Translation Approach To C-E Translation Of Public Signs

With the speeding up of globalization, China has gets more opportunities to communicate with countries all over the world. Offering English version for the Chinese public signs in public places has become a common phenomenon. However, with the increasing of English public signs, many improper or even wrong versions come to exist, which derogate the image of China. In order to improve the bilingual public sign and human and culture environment and provide good service for international communicating activities, improving the quality of public signs has become an urgent task.Based on the current situation of C-E translation of public signs, by introducing the definition, classification, function and stylistic features of public signs, analyzing the differences between Chinese and English signs and providing lots of examples of signs which are from journals, books, thesis, and translation websites, the thesis finds out problems in sign translation, and attempts to adopt communicative approach as a theoretical guidance for C-E translation of public signs.The research shows that the main problems in C-E translation of public signs lie in spelling, grammar and lexicon in the language aspect, and chinglish, harsh mood and misusing expression with different cultural connotations from the cultural aspect. According to Newmark, the translation method is decided by text type, the nature of readership and purpose of translation. Thus the text of public signs can be divided into expressive, informative, and vocative text accordingly. In the process of translation, the translator should abide by the author, fidelity and reader first principle and take the readership into consideration in order to realize cross-cultural communication by using idiomatic expression. Under the direction of communicative translation approach, the thesis put forward that the translator should improve their language proficiency in both source and target language and possess a high sense of responsibility, respect the habit of expression in English-speaking countries, attach importance on the pragmatic functions and explore aesthetic features of signs.