Functionalist Translation Of Yichang Tourism Culture

The booming international tourism industry in China has given rise to the need of well-translated tourist texts to provide quality traveling information for foreign tourists and attract more foreigners to travel China. This has given tourism translation a role of paramount importance. However, many English versions of Chinese tourist texts are far from satisfactory and fail to achieve the function as intended. Therefore, tourism translation deserves an in-depth study.Tourism translation aims at providing traveling information for foreign tourists and arousing their interest in visiting tourist attractions in China, and this special nature determines that tourism translation should be purpose-oriented and tourist-centered. Thus, functionalist translation theories, including German Skopos Theory and Nida's principle of dynamic/functional equivalence, can provide very useful guidelines on tourism translation. However, due to their difference in nature and in their role of guiding translation practice, Skopos Theory is more useful to guide tourism translation. Skopos Theory requires the translator to bear in mind the intended function of the target text and produce a version that is comprehensible and acceptable to the target readers.Yichang, with its advantageous geographic location, charming natural scenery, long humanity history and great hydroelectric projects, has its unique tourism culture, which is carefully classified into five categories in the thesis. The author attempts, by applying functionalist translation theory, to probe into the status of Yichang tourism translation through case studies to seek effective ways of improving the translation quality of Yichang tourism culture.Owing to great differences in language and culture, the translation process usually involves considerable adjustments or adaptations of the source text in order to achieve the intended function of the target text. Several translation strategies have been applied in the translation of Yichang tourism culture.