On Chinese-English Translation Of Public Signs From The Perspective Of Communicative Translation

With the acceleration of the pace of China's opening-up and the deepening of its internationalization, bilingual public signs are used more and more widely in cities. However, the present situation of public signs translation is far from satisfactory. There still exist many errors in the English versions of public signs and the theoretical research on their Chinese-English (C-E) translation is still inadequate. Therefore, the author of this thesis chooses C-E translation of public signs as her research topic with the purpose of finding out the problems in C-E translation of public signs and exploring the principles of public signs translation and the methods to be adopted.This research adopts a comparative qualitative analysis method to identify the errors that occur in C-E translation of public signs. The author of this research collects abundant examples of public signs with their translations as samples, and classifies the errors in the translation into three types—linguistic translation errors, cultural translation errors and pragmatic translation errors. And a deep analysis of the causes of these errors is made from linguistic and cultural aspects.Based on Buhler's classification of language functions, Newmark classifies texts into three main types, i.e. the expressive text, the informative text and the vocative text. Meanwhile, Newmark also introduces three minor functions of language:the aesthetic, the phatic and the metalingual. He claims that some texts are of hybrid functions and within the same text there is the co-existence of different functions with one of which predominant in the text. According to Newmark's text typology, public signs fall into vocative texts with vocative function as the predominant function and there is the co-existence of vocative function and informative or aesthetic function. Public signs mainly intend to call upon the public to act, to think and to feel, in fact to react in the way intended by the text. Therefore, conveying the vocative function of public signs is the essential task of translators in order to achieve the intended effect of public signs.For the translation of different types of texts, Newmark puts forward the methods of communicative translation and semantic translation. In Newmark's opinion, communicative translation is used for informative and vocative texts and semantic for expressive texts. Communicative translation attempts to produce on its readers an effect as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original. Being reader-centered and focusing on the intended effect of the translation, communicative translation is suitable for the translation of public signs which are public-oriented and center on the effect of the text.On the basis of the text typology and communicative translation approach, the author attempts to explore the principles and methods for C-E translation of public signs. In the light of communicative translation approach and the characteristics of public signs, the C-E translation of public signs should follow three principles, namely, conciseness, consistency and comprehensibility. Communicative translation approach only provides a framework for public signs translation without specifying what specific methods to be adopted in the translation process. Under the guidance of communicative translation approach, the author of this thesis discusses some specific translation methods for public signs translation:borrowing, adaptation and re-creative translation.