Attitude In Translation Of Museum Introductory Texts:A Corpus-based Comparative Study

As an important means of promoting museum, translation of museum introductory texts(MIT) is receiving increasing academic attention. The current literature on translation of MIT is mainly concentrated on factual information presented, thus leaving evaluation-loaded language undervalued and neglected. This is surprising given the significance of evaluation in contributing to the persuasive effect of MIT. Evaluation is almost universal as producers of the texts not only convey their personal tastes, preferences and feelings of museums, but also promote worth-visiting images of museums for the reader by employing myriad collective lexico-grammatical mechanisms centering on evaluation. Therefore, this study argues that translation of evaluation-loaded language deserve more academic efforts.The present study is an attempt to explore the translation of evaluation in MIT. It aims to find out how evaluation is realized in extant translations of MIT from Chinese to English; what's the difference in evaluation between English MIT translated from Chinese and MIT originally written in English; what translation strategies can be employed to better present evaluations in translation. To this end, the study turns to Appraisal theory developed by Martin and White(2005) for facilitating analysis of evaluation. The study specifically focuses on attitude, the core of evaluation in Appraisal theory and conducts a comparative study across two corpora: MIT translated from Chinese to English(CM-ET) and MIT originally written in English(EM-ET) selected from five major Englishspeaking countries: Britain, America, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Furthermore, in order to make the data analysis more comprehensive, based on Martin and White(2005), the study develops a macro-micro analytical framework. The macro level includes identifying attitude, attaching attitude and presenting attitude. In micro level, identifying attitude invokes specific attitudes(affect, judgment and appreciation), while attaching and presenting attitude involve general attitudes(museum-oriented/tourists-oriented attitude; inscribed/ invoked attitude).Underpinned by the framework, findings from the study reveal significant differences between the corpora. Overall, CM-ET is not as attitude-extensive as EM-ET. In terms of general attitude features, major attitudes in CM-ET are invoked, while attitudes in EM-ET are mainly inscribed. Attitudes in CM-ET are more museum-oriented than EMET's. As far as specific attitudes are concerned, both corpora share similar focus on appreciation, while affect in CM-ET is much less than the one in EM-ET. Besides, judgment takes a more prominent role in CM-ET than in EM-ET. Differences can also been seen in the sub-affect(inclination, happiness, security, satisfaction), sub-judgment(normality, capability, accessibility and credibility), and sub-appreciation(reaction, composition and valuation). Based on the differences, this study put forward three major strategies for translating MIT in terms of attitude resource: transferring museum-oriented attitude to tourists-oriented attitude, explicating invoked attitude to inscribed attitude and adjusting the frequency of specific attitude. Cases studies of translations have been provided for each strategy.The study reveals significant differences of attitude features in English MIT translated from Chinese and MIT originally written in English. It modifies and extends some aspects of Appraisal theory so as to facilitate the analysis of attitude in tourism texts. It is expected that the study can shed some light on the translation of evaluation in tourism. However, due to the intrinsic complexity of attitude and the limited corpus size in the study, further research can collect more data and combine attitude with other two important components within Appraisal theory(engagement and focus) to carry out more comprehensive research.