A Report On The English Translation Of Yunnan: Where Time Stays(Excerpt)

Yunnan,Where Time Stays is an informative travelogue published by China Travel & Tourism Press.It mainly introduces the picturesque landscapes and colorful cultural customs in Yunnan.Through the English translation of the third chapter Ten Things You Must Try in Yunnan and the sixth chapter Kunming---The City of Eternal Spring,the author summarizes the translation difficulties.And from the perspective of relevance theory,the author puts forward corresponding translation methods.Relevance theory suggests that translation activity is a cognitive process of ostensive-inferential communications,which involves informative intentions as well as communicative intentions.And the basic principle to guide translation activities should be the concept of relevance.It also proposes that the degree of relevance depends on the target readers' processing effort and the contextual effect.Because C-E tourism translation is relevant to this ostensive-inferential process,this report tries to discuss appropriate translation methods according to the C-E translation of Yunnan: Where Time Stays and the “max-min” principle of the relevance theory.After analyzing the type and characteristics of the source text,the author finds out that the source text includes considerable culture-loaded words,sentences with deficient contextual information and sentences with redundant information,which are to the author the three main translation difficulties.Therefore,according to the principle of maximizing the contextual effect and minimizing the readers' cognitive processing effort,the author comes up with pertinent translation methods such as omission,addition,explanation and transliteration plus annotation.To be specific,the author uses transliteration plus annotation to compensate the missing cultural connotations so as to ensure fluency,reader-friendliness and cultural communication.Meanwhile,explanation and addition are applied to make up for the implied contextual information so the optimal contextual effect can be generated.Moreover,the author applies omission to maintain the most relevant information so the optimal relevance can be acquired.This report proposes appropriate methods for the C-E translation of tourism texts in order to offer conducive experience for future tourism translation.Additionally,with the combination of relevance theory and translation practice,the author explores the practical significance of relevance theory,hoping to contribute to the adoption of relevance theory in tourism translation.Also,the target readers are expected to know more about Yunnan so that the cultural exchange can be strengthened.