C-E Translation Of Tourist Materials From The Perspective Of Functionalist Translation Theory

With the development of globalization, the connection between different countries becomes closer. Tourism, as a way of cultural communication, becomes more and more important. China, with its beautiful scenery and profound culture, attracts more and more foreign tourists to visit China, so the C-E translation of tourist materials plays a key role. However, the errors of C-E translation of tourist materials may mislead the target receivers. How to convey Chinese tourist materials to foreign visitors correctly, attract more foreigners to China and promote the development of China’s tourist industry? This issue needs to be explored by all translators.Based on Functionalist Translation Theory, the writer contrasts the Chinese and English tourist materials and introduces characteristics of tourist materials, which lead to many problems in the translation process. The writer proposes appropriate strategies according to Functionalist Translation Theory.According to Functionalist Translation Theory, translation is a purposeful activity of human, consisting of source text, target text, translator, and target text readers and so on. Oriented towards target texts, Functionalist Translation Theory emphasizes that the translation purpose is the most important key in the translation process. In the translation process, the translator needs to choose appropriate methods according to translation purpose. In this thesis, the writer firstly introduces the formation, development and main ideas of Functionalist Translation Theory. Then the writer analyzes the text type, functions and features of tourist materials. According to contrasting the Chinese and English tourist materials, the writer points out common problems in translation and causes behind these problems, namely lack of cross-culture awareness and ignorance of translation purpose and target readers’ expectations. In order to spread China’s culture and attract more foreign visitors, the writer points out that the C-E translation of tourist materials should put more emphasis on target readers’ acceptability as well as understanding ability and proposes appropriate translation strategies, for example, literal translation, transliteration, paraphrase, addition and so on.It is hoped that this study will give enlightenment to C-E translation of tourist materials, further improve the quality of C-E translation, spread China’s culture and promote China’s tourism industry.