Strategies Of C-E Translation Of Public Signs From The Perspective Of Functionalism

With the deepening of China's reform and opening-up policy and the developmentof globalization, the inter-governmental and interpersonal exchanges between China andother parts of the world have become a commonplace phenomenon. With the hugesuccess of 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and 2010 Shanghai World Expo, more and moreforeigners will come to China for business, tour and the like.With various functions, public signs play an important role in promoting the nationalimage and bolster communications between China and the outside world. To better serveforeign visitors, the English versions of public signs are provided in many public places.However, the translation of public signs is far from being satisfactory as many problemsand errors in the translation of public signs can be seen.From the functionalist translation perspective, errors of different types and causesbehind these errors in the C-E translation of public signs are analyzed. Principles andstrategies from the functionalist translation approach are also proposed to improve thetranslation of public signs.Focusing on the public signs, this thesis is composed of six chapters: In Chapter One,the author makes a general introduction of the research significance, research methods,previous researches on public sign translation in China and the structure of this paper.Chapter Two is theoretical framework, in which the functionalist translation theory isdiscussed in detail and theories put forward by major scholars are introduced. In addition,their applications in the C-E translation of public signs are discussed. Chapter Three is anoverview of public signs, including definitions, functions and linguistic features of publicsigns. In Chapter Four, errors in the translation of public signs are analyzed from thelinguistic, pragmatic and cultural perspectives. In Chapter Five, some C-E translationprinciples and strategies are proposed to help avoid translation errors. Finally, a briefsummary of the thesis is made, and the findings, implication as well as limitations of thisthesis are also revealed. The author suggests that more efforts should be made to furtherimprove the C-E translation of public signs.