A Study Of The C-E Translation Of Buddhist Culture In Dunhuang Tourism Texts From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Introduction to tourist attractions aims at expressing the information of the scenic spots, spreading thelocal culture and thus rousing the interests of the tourists. The translation of the scenic spots is the mosteffective meanwhile the most important way to introduce the local culture to foreigners. The translation ofthe tourism materials is not merely a transformation between languages, but the cross-culturecommunications. However, some inevitable factors like culture differences lead to imperfect translation ofChina’s tourism materials. This thesis takes Dunhuang’s tourism texts as an exemplar in that while itpossesses rich tourism resources and unique Buddhist culture in the world, still its C-E translation has manydeficiences which needed to be further improved.The adaptation theory is proposed by Verschueren and from the perspective of the adaptation theorywe can find that the use of language is the process of making choices. Based on Adaptation Theory, boththe source language and the target language have the properties of variability, negotiability and adaptability.Translation, which involves the transforming of these two languages, consists of a series of choice-makingboth at the inter-linguistic and extra-linguistic levels by the translators. The inter-linguistic level refers tothe linguistic structure (including linguistic style, lexis, sentence and discourse); the extra-linguistic aspectmeans the communicative context (including the physical world, the mental world and the social world).This thesis will take the translation of Buddhist culture in DTT as a example, to analysis how the adaptationtheory is used in the translation.This thesis conducts a specific analysis of the introduction of the Buddhist culture in DTT from fouraspects: the mental world, the social world, the physical world and the linguistic structure. With a series oftypical examples, the author found that the adaptation to these four aspects plays a key role in thetranslation of the tourism attractions. The translator’s choice-making happens at every level of the mentalworld, the social world, the physical world and the linguistic structure as well. These four parameterscorrelate with each other. During the process of translation, the translator needs to make choices andadaptation from these four angles. It is therefore concluded that only take the mental world, the socialworld, the physical world and the linguistic structure into full consideration can the translation of thetourism attractions realize the goal of communication and attract foreign tourists.