Chinese-English Translation Of Public Signs From The View Of Adaptation Theory

With the implement the policy of opening up and reforming, China has made great progress in some fields, such as political field, economical field, and cultural communication. And many activities have been or will be performed. For example: the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, the 2010 World Expos in Shanghai, and the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou. It goes without saying that more and more foreigners will come to China. In order to make the foreigners feel at home and help the foreigners know more about China, Chinese government has focused on the C-E translation of communicative materials, especially the C-E translation of public signs.Public signs, as a public communication, appear here and there in public places. It supplies people with a lot of information,such as what is it, how to do it, how to get to some places and so on, and it brings much help and convenience to foreigners who come to China; and it also make foreigners know much about China and Chinese culture, so it is a window to outside world and it can build up China's international image. Hence, as an important part of international communication, a proper and idiomatic C-E translation of public signs is also necessary and urgent. However, there are still many problematic English versions of public signs existing in public.This paper applies Jef Verschueren's Adaptation Theory as the theoretical foundation to guide the C-E translation of public signs. Jef Verschueren has proposed that using language is a process of continuous linguistic choice-making and adaptation. The language has three properties: variability, negotiability, adaptability. The research is expected to provide a reference framework for the future study, and it will provide a practical value to purify the bilingual public signs in China.The paper is divided into six chapters: Chapter One is a general introduction of research background, significance, data collection, research method, and the structure of the thesis. Chapter Two is a literature review. It is a review of the researches that have been made about the C-E translation of public signs and it offers an introduction of a new theory to study this issue. Chapter Three is an introduction of a theoretical framework of the Theory of Adaptation. And the related aspects of the theory are also analyzed. Chapter Four is the introduction of public signs. The author conducts a contrastive study of Chinese and English public signs, exploring their definition, features, functions, applied scopes, especially their similarities and differences both in linguistic and cultural features. The study shows that Chinese and English public signs have some similarities, and they still have many differences at linguistic levels and cultural levels. Chapter Five is the application of Adaptation Theory in C-E translation of public signs. On the basis of the above results of the contrastive study and in combination with Adaptation Theory, during the process of C-E translation of public signs,the translator should not only make linguistic adaptation at word, phrase and sentence levels but also make extra-linguistic adaptation at the readers'social, cognitive and cultural factors. Chapter Six is the conclusion. It summarizes the research findings and limitations and gives some suggestions.