On English Translation Of Tourism Slogans In Sichuan Province From The Perspective Of Eco-translatology

In pace with the takeoff of China’s economy, the tourism industry has risen by leaps and bounds and become one of the pillar industries for stimulating economic growth and expanding employment channels in China. As a major tourism province enjoying popularity internally, Sichuan is not only abundant in natural and cultural tourism resources but also careful about promoting tourist attractions, over which every place ranging from area to scenic spot has its own tourism slogans. Aiming at propagating the tourism images of scenic spots, cities, and areas in Sichuan province; these tourism slogans motivate the growth of Sichuan’s tourism in the domestic market a lot, and for broadening the overseas market, translating them into English becomes especially important. However, the current situation for tourism slogans in Sichuan province is that most of them don’t have English versions, and the existing ones are small in number and full of disadvantages too. Theoretically speaking, there is no research on English translation of tourism slogans in China except for those concentrating on English translation of other tourism materials such as scenic spot introductions, public signs, and tourist brochures and so on. All in all, the English translation activities of tourism slogans in Sichuan are still in its beginning stage, short of guiding theories, and waiting to be improved systematically.In order to supplement and standardize the present English versions of tourism slogans in Sichuan province, it is absolutely necessary to make use of translation theories, among which the theory of eco-translatology raised by Professor Hu Gengshen sheds light on it. This theory puts stresses on adaptation and selection during the translation process, which indicates that translators must firstly adapt to the translational eco-environment of a source text and then they can make a right choice to create the target text. Adaptation is multi-dimensional adaptation with emphasis on the linguistic, cultural, and communicative dimensions of a source text, while selection is adaptive selection that is realized through multi-dimensional transformation whose attention is on the transformation in linguistic, cultural, and communicative dimensions taking place between a source text and its target text. So, the translation principle under this theory is multi-dimensional-adaptation and adaptive selection, its translation method is multi-dimensional transformation, and its core standard for target text evaluation is degree of multi-dimensional transformation, namely, only when a translator truly achieves multi-dimensional adaptation and arranges selective transformation in at least three dimensions, he or she can produce a suitable target text.This thesis discusses English translation of tourism slogans in Sichuan province from "adaptation and selection", the key perspective of eco-translatology. At first, a lot of samples are collected and their features in linguistic, cultural, and communicative dimensions are analyzed respectively to make an adaptation to their translational eco-environment. Secondly, the main problems that may appear in the translation process of tourism slogans in Sichuan province are summarized, they are loss of transformation in linguistic dimension, loss of transformation in cultural dimension, and loss of transformation in communicative dimension, in which loss of transformation in cultural dimension is basically consistent with that in communicative dimension, by contrast, loss of transformation in linguistic dimension bears a dual character. Thirdly, considering that tourism slogans are born to be communicative, a general guiding rule is proposed to solve the three losses in coordination, namely, transformation in linguistic dimension ought to be as complete as possible on the basis of on loss happening in cultural and communicative dimensions, furthermore, specific methods are offered to follow this rule. In the end, the lowest standard and highest standard for evaluating the English versions of tourism slogans in Sichuan province are put forward too, they are entire transformation in two dimensions(culture, communication), and entire transformation in three dimensions(language, culture, communication).This thesis is written to provide an applicable perspective for the researches on English translation of tourism slogans in Sichuan province, to throw out a minnow to catch a whale and to call more studies in this filed.