A Pragmatic Approach To The Analysis Of The C-E Translation Of Tourist Texts In Yueyang Tower Scenic Area

Along with the accelerating pace of the economic and cultural globalization, China’s tourism industry also enjoys rapid development and a large number of tourists at home and abroad come to Yueyang Tower Scenic Area (hereafter abbreviated as YYTSA) which is located in the west of Yueyang city. What’s more amazing is that it was officially authorized as National AAAAA Scenic Area in September,2011. Considering the fact that YYTSA is not only an art entity that highlights the oriental culture but also a window for western tourists to learn Chinese culture, the quality of the C-E translation of the tourist texts in the area is of great significance. Good translation of tourist texts will bring more convenience to the tourists around the world and provide better external promotion of the area so that the level of the area’s internationalization will also be enhanced.Therefore, the author made an on-the-spot investigation of YYTSA and found that the C-E translation of tourist texts in the area was not satisfactory. The existing translation problems and errors must be obstacles to comprehension for foreign tourists and make their sightseeing less pleasant. However, taking a look at the research made by scholars at home and abroad, the author has found that few scholars did research on the C-E translation of tourist texts in YYTSA. Based on the previous research, the thesis is to probe into the C-E translation of such tourist texts in YYTSA from the perspective of pragmatic translation as public signs, scenic spots’ names, scenic spot introduction and tour guide presentation. After making a comprehensive analysis of the existing problems and errors in the C-E translation of tourist texts in YYTSA with typical examples, the author tries to provide revised translations of them through the application of pragmatic strategies so as to purify the area’s language environment, to enhance its level of internationalization, and to provide better external promotion of it.The author of the thesis maintains that it is of great use to probe into the tourist texts translation in YYTSA from the perspective of pragmatic translation with the help of pragmatic strategies so as to improve the existing circumstance of the C-E translation of tourist texts in the area. Why is that? First, translation is in essence a cross-cultural communication whose final purpose is to make the translation and the original have the same or similar communicative function. What’s more, pragmatic translation pays greater attention to the pragmatic implicature of the language under specific contexts and the pragmatic equivalent effects or pragmatic equivalence between the target language and the source language, and it favors such a pragmatic equivalence to overcome the barriers of the cross-cultural communications. Last but not least, tourist texts translation focuses on the equivalent transfer of the information of the source texts in the target texts, during the process of which translators must pay attention to expression conventions of the target language and target readers’ expectation. However, pragmatic translation also has its own limitations. In the process of translating, translators should adopt diverse methods and integrated strategies so as to achieve pragmatic equivalence between the source tourist text and the target one.