Pragmatic Analysis Of Improper English Version Of Chinese Public Signs

Public signs are very commonly used in people's daily life and they are irreplaceable elements of people's communication, concerning almost every aspect of public circumstances. With the intensification of the reform and opening-up policy, China's connection with the world is strengthened and the English version of Chinese public signs is an important aspect of international communication for they have great significance to promote China's international image and enhance China's cultural exchanges and economic cooperation with other countries. Therefore, the study on English translation of Chinese public signs has been one of the hot topics. Many researchers and scholars have made contribution to this area from different perspectives. But, the study of public signs, from the perspective of speech act theory and Brown and Levinson's politeness theory, has rarely been conducted.Based on the samples selected from more than 1000 items of English public signs and nearly 1000 items of English version of Chinese public signs collected from home and abroad, this thesis, from the pragmatic perspective of speech act theory (Austin, 1962) and Brown and Levinson's politeness theory (1987), will focus on the pragmatic analysis of improper English version of Chinese public signs from three aspects: linguistic aspect, pragmalinguistic aspect, and sociopragmatic aspect. This thesis intends to find the differences between improper English version of Chinese public signs and English public signs and then explore the reasons that the improper English version of Chinese public signs fails to realize the function of directing, prompting, restricting, compelling, arousing interest, promoting action, reinforcing image, and serving societyThrough the contrastive exploration of English public signs and English version of Chinese public signs respectively, this thesis reveals that the essential reasons leading to the failure of transfering communicative intention is the non-equivalence between the speech act force of English version and that of original Chinese public signs. And this is caused by the three aspects: linguistic errors, pragmalinguistic failures, and sociopragmatic failures. To be specific, the linguistic errors consist of spelling mistakes, formal errors and semantic errors of lexis, and grammar errors; pragmalinguistic failures refer to the literal translation without the consideration of the intention of the original public sign; sociopragmatic failures are concerned with that the expression of translation do not comply with the expression of target language or the culture. And the reasons for those errors are as following: 1)The translator's language competence is not good enough to use the target language; 2)Due to the negative transfer of native language, the translator applies the vocabulary and syntax mechanically under the negative influence of expression of Chinese upon English; 3)The translator's understanding about the cultural background of the target language is not enough and the translator is not familiar with the target readers'expression and the culture of the society.The conclusions of this thesis have some implications on English translation of Chinese public signs. Translators should improve their own language quality; meanwhile, in the translation process, they should strengthen their pragmatic awareness to reduce cross-cultural communication failure.