A Study On C-E Translation Of Tourism Text From Functionalist Perspective

Nowadays, tourism industry is gaining popularity rapidly and expanded in a large scale in the fast developing world, which enhances the quality of people’s life and exerts a huge impact on the economic development, educational and recreational modes, and global cultural exchange. China, especially, has been drawing worldwide attention with its marvelous landscapes, splendid history, distinctive culture, and numerous world-famous relics. However, due to the barriers in language convention and gaps in cultural backgrounds, foreign tourists tend to feel much difficult to comprehend the distinctive cultural elements presented in Chinese tourism texts. A large number of translational works of this respect are far from satisfactory and not able to achieve the function as expected, or even causes misunderstandings and damage China’s international image. In this regard, how to translate Chinese tourism materials into English in an adequate way deserves much attention and discussion.The author of this thesis intends to carry out an exploration on the translation of Chinese tourism texts into English based on the theoretical framework of functionalist translation theory, especially Vermeer’s Skopostheorie, Reiss’translation criticism and Nord’s principle of function plus loyalty. The function of tourism translation is to convey abundant tourist information to target audiences who are fascinated about Chinese scenic spots and culture, and stir up their desire to tour in China. The author also categories and analyzes the factors leading to the difficulty in tourism translation and current translation problems appearing in first-hand tourist texts, and endeavor to propose adequate translating strategies such as addition, omission, combination and division, adaptation, and analogy, to improve the quality of tourism translation, promote tourist services and resources. To fulfill the intended function of the translated texts and to ensure the translation can make the readers well-informed and have an appealing effect on its readers, two principles are recommended in tourism translation, namely, the principle of target reader orientation and the principle of Chinese culture exchange,It is hopeful that the research in this thesis will be of some help in the effort to improve the overall quality of C-E tourism translation, promote tourism resources all around China, and enhance China’s international image.