An Evaluation Of The Quality Of English Translations Of The Chinese Provincial Pavilion Themes At Shanghai World Expo

Pavilion theme of Expo2010Shanghai is one of the main means of promoting pavilion. For the need of publicity, the theme of provincial pavilion appears in bilingual form-Chinese and English. The translation quality of pavilion theme affects the understanding of target audience and determines the publicity effect. Therefore, study on the translation quality of pavilion theme is very important and necessary.Taking the principle "faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance" proposed by Yan Fu and World Expo2010Shanghai China Theme Content Guide as references, this thesis studies the English translations quality of31provincial pavilion themes. The main research question is whether the English translations of theme words are faithful, smooth, and whether they achieve the translation purposes. Documentary study and qualitative research methods are employed in this research. The related literature and background information about provincial pavilion themes are collected from the Expo2010Shanghai official website.The findings show that the structures of all the translated texts of pavilion themes conform to the rules of English grammar and idioms. Most of the English translations are faithful to the Chinese text in content, keep the beauty in form and achieve the translation purposes; some others do not meet the requirements all. At last, the author analyzes and concludes the causes leading to the failure in translation, and provides some suggestions on theme translation. Meanwhile, recommendations on further study on the translation of pavilion themes are made.