On Translation Of The Profiles Of Ancient Mausoleums In Shaanxi Province From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

With the gradual advancement of China’s opening-up, the acceleration of globalization, and the rapid development of international tourism, more and more Western tourists come to visit China, a country with five thousand years of splendid culture. Today, tourism is the largest cultural service industry in the world, and China will become the largest tourist reception state of this century. How to enhance China’s tourism connotation and management level, how to explore the cultural tourism resources adequately, how to raise the level of tourism English translation and how to provide more effective services for foreign tourists are the great and arduous historical mission we are facing.Tourism translation studies at home can divide into many kinds, such as regional tourism translation studies, eco-tourism translation studies, cultural tourism translation studies, and so on. Cultural tourism is a brand-new concept in field of tourism studies. The focal point of cultural tourism is to take the cultural pursuit as the core in the traveling activity. People often pay attention to the spiritual, material, oral or non-material heritage with regard to historical culture. It is a modern tourism of high-level and high request. Cultural tourism has been defined as "the movement of persons to cultural attractions away from their normal place of residence, with the intention to gather new information and experiences to satisfy their cultural needs".Tourism culture has a wide range, such as tourism in celebrity and scenic spots, historical sites, cultural recreation spots with China’s characteristics, fine food cities, art centers, ecology-related tourism, and so on. All the tourism activities which involve the cultural elements can be arranged under the umbrella term "’cultural tourism". The corresponding tourism culture refers to all cultures involved in tourism, including any of the global cultural connotation. It is a product from the combination of culture and tourism. It includes natural scenery, historical anecdotes, folk culture, literature and art, legends, and encyclopedic knowledge. It is the combination of all kinds of relationship between subject and object of tourism.The inherent elements in tourist resources, such as traditional culture, national culture, classical beautiful poetry, music and dance, astronomy and geography, historical heritage in humanistic resources, as well as palaces and temples, mausoleums and underground palaces, botanical gardens and tablet inscriptions, places of historic interest and large numbers of modern human landscapes in material culture resources are well-known to the world. Some Chinese scholars think that cultural tourism profiles focusing on tourism activities show the relationship between tourism activities and various cultures, foregrounding the unique characteristics of a variety of cultures. Translators will encounter all kinds of special cultural elements when they translate the material, which require intercultural interpretations. There are many difficulties, such as the translation of professional terms and cultural words with Chinese characteristics. The mausoleum is a tomb for an emperor or a nobleman in ancient times. It is a special product at a specific stage in history. Visiting the ancient mausoleums is a kind of cultural tourism. There are many special words and sentences which are unique to Chinese language-culture in the profiles of mausoleums. An effective way of studying cultural traveling is to research the translation of the profiles of ancient mausoleums.This thesis conducts a preliminary discussion of the translation of profiles of the ancient mausoleums from the angle of the skopos theory. First, the thesis reviews and summarizes the status of cultural tourism translation studies at home; then based on the skopos theory it introduces the application of the theory in tourism translation. Starting from the features of mausoleum profile texts, the thesis chooses the introductions of ancient mausoleums and their translations in Shaanxi Province to conduct a case study, expounding the function of the skopos theory in translating mausoleum texts and pointing out the different specific solutions the translators have made to various words and sentences in the process of mausoleum profile translation.The first chapter briefly introduces the object. purpose and significance of this study, the approach to the study as well as the overall structure of the thesis. The second chapter begins with a brief review of the domestic tourism translation research and the translation research of cultural tourism. The third chapter is about the basic theory of mausoleum profile translation studies:the skopos theory. First, the thesis briefly introduces the origins and development process, and then highlights the application of the skopos theory in tourism translation. The fourth chapter is a case study of mausoleum profile translation. It introduces the source texts selected in this thesis, and analyses the features of mausoleum texts in discourse, vocabulary and style. Then, the thesis takes the selected mausoleum profiles in Shaanxi Province for example and uses the skopos theory to analysis them. It takes the vocabulary and culture with Chinese characteristics as a departure of study, demonstrating the guiding role of the skopos theory. The thesis argues that translators should adopt different translation strategies in order to interpret the words and culture with Chinese characteristics vividly and effectively translate Chinese characteristics. In this way foreign visitors cannot only fully enjoy the fun of tourism but also experience the profound culture with Chinese characteristics. The fifth chapter is a summary of the whole thesis and points out the inadequacies in this study that need to be improved, the author of this thesis has put forward her own views on the future study of this topic.