Study On C-E Translation Of Hainan Tour Guide Presentations

With the rapid development of tourism industry, the translation of tour guide presentations which the vast tourism market in Hainan needs should be practicable, have high quality and can be used directly. However, various problems and mistakes exist in the published translation of Hainan tour guide presentations. Generally speaking, people attribute these problems and mistakes to translators'incompetence, and their inappropriately using translation strategies and techniques. Few of them try to dig out the in-depth reasons, that is, the psychological reasons. It is the first time that the translation of Hainan tour guide presentations is studied systematically under a theoretical framework. This research focuses on the psychological process of the translation of Hainan tour guide presentations, which may effectively explain why problems and mistakes emerge in the translation and the application of translation strategies.It was the British Psychologist Frederic Bartlett (1886-1969) who initially introduced the concept of schemata into psychology and education. Then schema theory is gradually applied into the aspects such as discourse analysis, Artificial Intelligence, translation and so on. A schema is general term for a conventional knowledge structure which exists in memory (George Yule,2000). It is a cognitive concept or framework that helps people organize and interpret information.The present study starts from the comparative analysis of different translational versions of Hainan tour guide presentations. Through the analysis, the author defines three main types of schemata which influence the translation of tour guide presentations.Second, a comparison on these three schemata between Chinese and English tour guide presentations is conducted. Only when the translators are aware of these different schemata during the translating process, can they improve the quality of their translation.Third, a model for schemata working in translating tour guide presentations is constructed. In this model, the illusory text of the SLT is highlighted, which influences the quality of translation.Fourthly, by analyzing data, the typical problems and mistakes in the translation of Hainan tour guide presentations are attributed to some cognitive reasons.At last, five kinds of schema changes are applied to the translation of tour guide presentations including:schema reinforcing, schema preserving, schema refreshment, schema adding and schema subtracting. Most of time, the translation process combines these changes of schemata.The author concludes that the schema theory may shed lights on studying translating psychological process and it is applicable and constructive to help translators improve the quality of the C-E translation of tour guide presentations.