A Study Of C-E Public Signs Translation Under The Guidance Of Intertextuality Theory

"Intertextuality" was first put forward by Julia Kristeva in the1960’s, a well—known French Symbologist, based on Bakhtin’s Dialogism Theory. She views any text as a result from the absorption and transformation of other texts, which she calls intertextuality. In her view, any text is intertextual. Intertextuality theory was formally introduced into translation by Hatim and Mason, ifi their book Discourse and Translator. According to them, translation is not a simple translation from one language to another, but the transforming of different cultures, and translation itself is a kind of intertextual activity. Intertextuality theory was applied in literary translation at the beginning, gradually it has infiltrated into practical writing, such as the translation of advertising, public signs, trademarks, film titles, etc.Public signs have always been called "name card of a city". Generally speaking, in most cities, public signs are bilingual:Chinese and English. However, the research of public signs translation in China lags rather behind, public signs translation errors occur frequently. Thus, it is not only necessary but also urgent to study the rules of public sign translation and to eliminate translation errors in public signs. The purpose of public signs translation is to offer services to foreigners who come to China for visiting, working or doing business. Therefore, the C-E translation of public signs should be closely related to language and culture. This thesis explores the translation of public signs from the perspective of intertextuality.Guided by this idea, the author begins with an introduction of intertextuality theory and discusses different definitions, classfication by different schools and its development. As a post modernism term, intertextuality means any text is an open system based upon mutual reference, proclaiming the death of the author and dissolving the originality of texts. Hatim and Mason’s three-dimensional perspective and models to identify and transfer intertextual reference have created a new vision in translation fields.Inspired by Hatim’s intertextuality translation theory, the author firstly classifies and discusses the translation problems of public signs from language and cultural perspectives. Then the author tries analysing the intertextual elements in public signs and advances a basic approach for intertextual translation of public signs, that is, analysing and capturing intertextual signals--identifying intertextual reference—transferring intertextual reference. Finally, the author puts forward five types of translation methods from language and cultural perspectives, namely "copying""imitating","transliteration","cultural substitution" and "zero-translation".At the end of the thesis, the author studies C-E translation of public signs in some public places of Hefei as a single case. Through the investigation, author finds that the general situation in Hefei is good, but translation errors occur here and there, many of which fail to conform to English expression and cultural connotations. This is because the translators are in lack of intertextual knowledge. At last, under the guidance of the intertextual translation theory, the author retranslates some problematic public signs.This thesis is divided into four chapters. Chapter I is an introduction to the topic. Chapter II is review of intertextuality, Hatim’s intertextuality translation theory and public signs, which provides a theoretical basis for the following part. Chapter III is the application of Hatinrs intertextuality to the C-E translation of public signs, corresponding translation methods and retranslating. Some problematic English translation of public signs in Hefei city are listed as examples. At last, problematic public signs are retranslated under the guidance of the theory. Chapter IV is the summary of the paper, proposing implications and limitations of the study and some suggestions for the further study.