A Study Of The Translation Of Public Signs From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence

Since21st century, with the rapid growth of the domestic economy and theconstant reform and opening-up, China is now becoming more and more international.Many foreign organization and people come to China to visit, tour, look for businessopportunities and even reside. Thus bilingual public signs are provided in most citiesnow in order to bring convenience to these foreigners.After the Beijing Olympic Games, Shanghai World Expo as well as the AsianGames in Guangzhou, the public sign translation has gained great progress in Chinesecites, especially in these first-tie cities. However in other places, the translation errorsof public signs occur very frequently which violates the image and soft strength ofChina. Hence, it is quite necessary and urgent for the government and even the societyto research on the principles and methods of the translation of public signs andanalyze and correct the errors on the English translation of public signs and providestrategies to eliminate these errors.As a breakthrough in the traditional idea of equivalence, the theory of functionalequivalence has opened a new vision for translation practice of public signs, whichsuggests that translating is a behavior with purposes. That is to say, the target textshould meet the intended aim and function as it is supposed to, and any failure thatobstructs the equivalence of function is a translation error or insufficiency.Based on the Theory of Functional Equivalence and the public signs translationsin Changchun, this thesis is composed of five parts: Firstly, the research backgroundand significance of this study are given and the research questions are listed. Secondly,the literature reviews of both the functional approach and the academic studies onpublic signs translation in China are put forward, at the same time, the theoretic basisof this paper is provided. Thirdly, the methodology of this thesis, especially the wayof data collection and categorization, is introduced. Then the correction of commonimproper and mistaken translations, principles and strategies are proposed. Finally, abrief summary of the thesis is made again and the further study direction is suggested.It turns out that translation errors exist in lexical, grammatical and cultural levels.Besides, Chinglish is another major problem in the public signs translation,suggesting translator should pay attention to the linguistic features and Chinesecharacteristics and adopt cultural adjustment and courtesy, standard usage andaccuracy and economy in words when translating public signs. The thesis also suggests that all society members including the government,schools, volunteers and translators should be involved in the enhancement of publicsigns translations.