On The Application Of The Strategy Of "Adjusting The Source Text" To Tourist Guide Translation-From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

With the booming of tourism industry, more and more English tourist guides come out. At the same time multifarious problems also come with them. It is generally believed that the incompetence of translators and inappropriate use of translation strategies and techniques should account for these problems. But the present thesis holds that the inferior quality of the source text is another important factor. To improve the tourist guide translation, adjusting the source tourist guide is a necessary step and an important strategy.Skopostheorie holds that the prime principle determining any translational process is the purpose of the overall translational action. The end justifies the means. Tourist guide, as a type of pragmatic texts, serves to offer information tourists need and call for their responses. Thus the effect on target readers is the most important factor determining the content of information transferred. Based on this theory, the source tourist guide serves just as an offer of information instead of a model that needs faithfully reproducing, thus the source text can be adjusted.The present thesis starts from the problems in C-E (Chinese-English) tourist guide translation. Through analysis of the problems, the inferior quality of the source text is recognized as an important factor for these problems, thus English texts with problems in the source texts are the focus of the study.To get an idea of how to adjust the source text, the differences in Chinese and foreigners is better to be clarified. Thus a comparison is made between original English tourist guides and English Versions describing the same spots. Through such a comparison, the different expectations among Chinese and foreigners on culture, style of writing, religion, and social systems are elaborated. Then five principles on how to adjust the source tourist guide are proposed based on the different expectations.At last, some examples on how to apply these five principles are illustrated. Tourist guide translation should include two processes, adjustment to the source text and adoption of different translation techniques.As a pragmatic strategy, "Adjusting the source text" can be systematically studied and applied to translational practice. Through trial analysis and exploration, the author hopes that problems in the versions of tourist guides can be eliminated more effectively.