Translating Welcome To Xincheng District-Tales Of Streets And Public Buildings:Horizon Of Expectations As A Perspective

Xi’an, an ancient capital of thirteen dynasties with a history of more than 3,000 years, has attracted a great number of tourists around the world. Tourism translation, serving as a bridge, helps to spread Chinese culture and draws tourists from all over the world, thus the quality of tourism publicity text has a direct bearing on the development of local tourism industry. This report is based on the C-E translation of the book Welcome to Xincheng District—Tales of Streets and Public Buildings in which the author was involved as one of the key translators. It summarizes the difficulties encountered in the process of translation, which are analyzed in terms of linguistic and cultural aspects under the guidance of Horizon of Expectations in Reception Aesthetics with the specific translation principles proposed: firstly, satisfy readers’ Horizon of Expectations, which requires translators to shorten the aesthetic distance between visitors and texts in an effort to enhance the readability; secondly, expand visitors’ Horizon of Expectations, which means translators should appropriately keep the features of source language so as to advocate Chinese culture. According to the two principles above, if the content contradicts readers’ Horizon of Expectations, translators shall flexibly adopt various translation techniques, such as omission and explanation, to fuse Horizon of Expectations of visitors and translated texts through adjusting their aesthetic distance. This report takes aesthetic tendencies, reading patterns, knowledge structures and thinking habits of potential readers into consideration, offering a new angle for tourism translation studies.