On C-E Translation Of Public Signs For Tourism From The Perspective Of Translation Norms Theory

Public signs, which can be seen everywhere in our daily life, play an important role not only in offering foreigners information but also in upgrading the international image of China around the world. The quality of the Chinese-English translation of public signs has a great influence on foreign people’s impression on a city and even the whole country. However, there still exist all kinds of problems waiting for solutions in many cities like capital cities or tourist cities. Such mistakes not only make foreigners feel inconvenient, but also degrade China’s image on the global stage. This thesis adopts research methods of qualitative study and quantitative study, analyzing the characteristics of public signs and the present situation of its translation. The author tries to generalize types of errors, on the purpose of proposing effective strategies of C-E translation of public signs for tourism.Andrew Chesterman takes viewpoints on translation and translation theories as translation norms, which also takes translation strategy and translation values as its core concepts. Translation Norms include expectancy norms and professional norms. Strategies help to conform to norms and norms help to promote values.This paper analyzes these three translation concepts and combines them with C-E translation of public signs for tourism by taking public signs in Qingdao tourist sites as examples. A survey was also conducted by 145 native English speakers to investigate the acceptability of different types of translation mistakes during the time when the author visited the United States in 2013.The paper, beginning with the features of public signs, analyzes sample signs translation from main scenic spots in Qingdao and points out that the translator must take expectancy norms and professional norms into account and adopt proper translating methods in the practice of tourism translation, making it more standard and meet target readers’expectation.All in all, against the backdrop of globalization, internationalization is inevitable and bilingual public signs are indispensable, which deserves much attention. The theory of translation norms by Andrew Chesterman gives a new angle to probe into C-E translation of public signs for tourism and is of high instructive significance. The author hopes such research can provide new enlightenment for enhancing tourist public signs translation.