On The Translation Of Tourism Texts From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

With the robust development of China’s tourism industry, translation of tourism text has received more and more attention from translators. However, translators and scholars share different viewpoints concerning the criteria for good tourism text translation. Though many scholars have carried out their extensive studies on the issue, the defect with their studies is that they are conducted mainly under the guidance of related linguistic theories, and that they are restricted to the studies of translation methods and skills, which are devoid of theoretical guidance and systematic support. Moreover, such researches always set traditional translation concepts “faithfulness” and “equivalence” as their core, neglecting such factors as target readers’ horizon of expectations, which results in poor translation that is hardly accepted by target readers. Therefore, this type of translation study should be reader-oriented.Tourism text translation, aiming at introducing tourism resources and Chinese culture to the outside world, is a purposeful activity whose success mainly depends on the reception and response of the readers, which is in accordance with the spirit of Reception Aesthetics. Application of the theory into tourism text translation has established readers’ leading role in the translation study. Breaking away from the text-centered principle of traditional translation study, Reception Aesthetics advocates the reader-oriented translation as its criteria. This thesis, under the guidance of Reception Aesthetics, aims to put forward the idea that the translated text should seek a balance between Eastern and Western culture by reaching its fusion with target readers’ horizon of expectations as well as by preserving the elements peculiar to Chinese culture. Meanwhile, on the basis of a comprehensive analysis of Ningbo tourism text translation, it is pointed out that the methods that the translators can choose are subject to target readers’ receptivity. The strategy of assimilation, such as omission, analogy and rewriting is suggested inorder to comply with target readers’ horizon of expectations and shorten the aesthetic distance and the alienation strategy “amplification” is also suggested to translate those cultureloaded items so as to broaden target readers’ horizon of expectations and enhance the readability of the translated texts.Through the analysis of Ningbo tourism text translation, the study reveals that though translation is a task performed by the translator, to some extent, it is also affected by the target readers’ cultural background and tradition, social experience and aesthetic values. Translators should take target readers’ receptivity into full account when translating tourism texts and maintain a balance between comprehensibility and foreignness of the translated texts so as to produce an ideal translation and achieve the intended purpose of tourism text translation.