On C-e Translation Of Public Signs From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

With the globalization of China, the ubiquitous C-E bilingual public signs have become a matter of fact, and the translation of public signs has become an important part of building a good international language environment as well as a first-hand source of information for foreigners to know China. Although the C-E translation of public signs is an indispensable part of intercultural communication, the improper or nonstandard English versions of public signs, referred to as the "urban psoriasis", have become a pressing problem calling for serious attention. Public signs, also named billboards or placards, reflect China's social life and thus pose an international image. The current situation of C-E translation of public signs in China, however, is far from satisfactory. This thesis attempts to provide some practical strategies for C-E translation of public signs from the perspective of reception aesthetics through concrete analyses of the existing problems with C-E translation of public signs. Reception aesthetics, with Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser, the founders of the "School of Constance", as its major representatives, is a kind of reader response (reader-centered) literary theory that emphasizes the reader's reception of a literary text. According to reception aesthetics, readers'acceptance of and response to the translated texts are the fundamental yardstick by which the quality of translation is judged. Therefore, reception aesthetics, as a relatively new methodology, could be applied to shed some light on the C-E translation of public signs with a view to providing the reader of this paper with some feasible translation strategies for the improvement of C-E translation of public signs in China.