Acceptability Of Chinese-English Translation Of Public Signs

Chinese-English translation of public signs is an important aspect of international communication, which is of great significance to china's cultural exchanges and economic cooperation with other countries. Therefore, the author, under the theoretical guidance of Newmark's text typology and translation acceptability, chooses C-E sign translation as her research, in which the author discusses the acceptability of C-E translation of public signs and explores the applicable translation strategy and various translation methods. The author hopes that through her study, the English translation of Chinese public signs can be well-accepted so as to realize their informative and vocative functions.This thesis is based on the analysis of a great number of public signs and the comparison between their English versions. The author begins with the discussion of the definitions, features, functions and the common translation errors of public signs; then under the guidance of Newmark's text typology, the author classifies all the public signs into two chief types: informative signs and vocative signs. However, besides text type, there are still many other factors influencing the choice of translation methods and acceptability, such as linguistic factors, cultural factors, communicative purpose, TL genre conventions and cultural norms, etc. Therefore, the author goes further to introduce translation acceptability, based on which the author suggests a criterion--"equivalent effect" and some principles that translators should obey for the C-E translation of public signs. It has been pointed out that an acceptable English sign translation should have the same effect on English-speaking readers as the original Chinese version on its Chinese readers. In order to get this "equivalent effect", translators should, taking account of various factors influencing acceptability, decide a proper translation strategy. So by comparing Newmark's semantic translation and communicative translation, the author holds that the latter proves to be an effective one. Meanwhile, it is pointed out that the English translations of Chinese signs should conform to English genre conventions and cultural norms, catch the communicative purpose and center on target readers. Finally, under the guidance of communicative translation and combining the principles mentioned before, the author suggested some useful translation methods that can be applied to C-E translation of public signs from three aspects.It has to be admitted that there is still enough room for this thesis to be improved, but it contributes, to some extent, to the theory and practice of C-E public sign translation-it shows that the combination of Newmark's text typology and translation acceptability is feasible and applicable, and that the translation methods suggested by the author prove to be very useful.