The Chinese-English Translation Of Public Signs: Problems And Solutions

In the past few years, more and more attention has been paid to the Chinese-English (C-E) translation of public signs. Studies have been carried out, which resulted in some valuable theoretical achievements and great improvement of the C-E translation of public signs. However, there are still a lot of problems unsolved. Taking the C-E translation of public signs in Tianjin as examples, this thesis analyzes the problems in the translated public signs and tries to solve them.Altogether, the thesis consists of five parts. The first part is a general introduction to the thesis, including significance of the research, related translation theories, research methods, previous studies of the C-E translation of public signs and the structure of the thesis. The second part is the overall introduction to public signs, including concepts, functions, static and dynamic meanings, wording characteristics and types. The third part discusses Skopostheorie which will be used as the theoretical basis of the research. In the fourth part, the author analyzes some common problems in the C- E translation of public signs in the city of Tianjin and discusses how to solve them. The problems can be classified into linguistic problems and cultural problems, with the former further divided into spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, improper use of words, Chinglish, failing to convey the meaning of the original text, semantic translation mixed with transliteration and transliteration instead of semantic translation; while the latter further classified into harsh tone and poor acceptability. Then the author suggests some translation methods for the C-E translation of public signs, including copying existing English public signs, transliteration plus semantic translation, addition, omission, rearranging the word order and using an appropriate tone. And, the fifth part is the conclusion of the thesis, in which the author emphasizes the importance of the C-E translation of public signs and appeals for people to make efforts to perfect it.