Building A Bridge Over Cultures

This paper aims to explore the applicability of Skopostheorie to the Chinese-to-English (C-E) translation of tourist literature within the framework of functionalist approaches. Upon analysis, the author holds that the Skopostheorie is useful for translating specific text types, including tourist literature. The theory caters not only to linguistic analysis but also extra-linguistic factors, especially cultural factors, due to the fact that they hold that "translating means comparing cultures". (Reiss 2001: 34).In the paper the author reviews previous pertinent researches in the domain of tourist literature translation both at home and abroad, and introduces the development and basic aspects of the Skopostheorie. Theoretical analysis of the general Skopos, the text type of tourist literature, which is a mixture of informative, expressive and appellative functions;and translation brief of tourist literature, is also conducted. The general Skopos of C-E translation of tourist literature, analyzed by the author, should be: 1) to provide maximum information about China's tourist attractions, if possible and achievable, for foreign tourists and facilitate their tour of the country;2) to allure potential tourists to take a tour of China;and 3) to promote the country's culture by building a bridge over the gap between Chinese and Western cultures.A practical analysis of one tourist introduction book entitled Focus on Guangdong, China, is also conducted with general translation strategies proposed, which are: 1) transliteration plus explication;2) cultural analogy plus explication;and 3) pruning.This thesis aims to shed some light on C-E translation of tourist literature in terms of its width and depth and hold some insights for pedagogical purposes.