The Study Of C-E Translation Acceptability Of Guilin’s Scenic Spots In Skopostheorie

In the new century China will become the largest tourist reception country with the vigorous development of tourism industry. The advent of economic globalization as well as cultural globalization has driven a new era of globalization in tourism industry. Hence the significance of tourism translation is particularly prominent in the context of this time. China is endowed with tremendous natural and cultural tourism resources, the translation quality and acceptability of which is an important issue with significance in the new century. Guilin as a well-known tourism places at home and abroad, receives numerous tourists every year, is a good representative in the research of tourism translation, quality and acceptability of which should be taken more count.On the constitute perspective, scenic spots is a major part in tourism translation. The study of scenic spot translation is determined by its significance in tourism translation practice. In this thesis, the acceptability of scenic spot C-E translation is set as the research object by means of field research, literature research, questionnaire and interview as its major research methods. SPSS11.5is used to analyze data collected. Due to the variety of gathered material, the researcher classified it into three sorts:1official material compiled by Tourism Bureau alike;2literature published by commercial institutions;3tourism texts published and spread by other social channel. Through a systematic comparison of these three sorts of material, the upgrade-based, official and representative Guilin Tourist Guidebook in2010published by Guilin Municipal Tourism Bureau is chosen as the research text for further survey. According to the survey statistic of inbound tourist reception in2008to2010from Tourism Bureau, the top ten scenic spots are listed as the research scope. Scenery introductions of the ten selected spots are used as the source texts for tourists to evaluate and scale in questionnaire and interview. The acceptability status of scenic spots introductions are analyzed from the research results. Skopostheorie as a functionalist translation theory is adopted to guide tourism translation rules and strategies in the study. Therefore, it is meaningful on the scope of introducing China’s tourism resources and communion with global tourism market. The thesis is elaborated from five parts. The first chapter is a brief introduction of tourism translation, its research background and implication. The lack of empirical study on tourism translation is also pointed out, hence the implication and purpose of this research is stated. Chapter Two first defined the terms of tourism translation, scenic spot introduction, and translation acceptability, which are the research objects of the study. Then a systematic introduction of the theoretical support-the development and major points of the Skopostheorie: three rules of Skopostheorie. At last, the literature review of tourism translation is generally presented from both domestic and foreign aspects. Chapter Three stated the research process of the study, from the research question:the acceptability of Guilin’s top ten scenic spot introductions:from the research method:empirical study by questionnaire and interview; from the result:Excel and SPSS11.5are adopted in the result analysis:the general acceptability is only in the range between accepted Quite Well and Not Very Well. From the response of participants, three aspects of unacceptable are concluded, which are the out and invalid information problem, Chinglish problem, and unattractive expression. Based on the research results, the tourism translation status in China and Guilin needs to be improved urgently. Chapter Four analyzed the three problems reflected in the last Chapter by the guidance of Skopostheorie. Then, a comparison from view of cultural, aesthetic and linguistic features and orientation differences in Chinese and English is conducted. Through the above discussions both on language and beyond language, three qualities of tourism translation are put forwarded in accordance with the three major problem revealed in research:expressive translation, informative translation, attractive translation for improving the acceptability in C-E tourism translation. Another suggestion by polled tourists is that revision and proofreading by target language readers. In the last chapter of the thesis, the major results of this study are summarized, including both the implication and the limitation. Further study suggestion of empirical research in tourism translation is also presented at the last part.