Study On Translation Of EXPO Public Signs: An Adaptation And Selection Approach

With the development of society and our country's opening-up and reforms,public signs are becoming quite popular and the actual application of public signs inreal life is on its way to become more and more popular. The translation of publicsigns is, to a large extent, a specific embodiment of the national level of foreignexchanges and humanity environment. However, translations of public signs are farfrom being satisfactory as inadequate translations fails to convey proper informationand provide foreigners with convenience. Thus, it becomes our jobs of greatimportance to understand the translation of public signs and to grasp how we cantranslate public signs with higher readability and acceptability.Under the theoretical framework of Translation as Adaptation and Selection,detailed analyses have been given to the translation of Shanghai and Kunming Expopublic signs. It aims to explain the adaptations and selections made during the processof translation and the relationship between the two. Comparative method is used toexplore the different and similar features of Chinese and English public signs;meanwhile, descriptive method is used to figure out the adaptations and selections inthe translating Expo public signs.In this study, the research data are public signs that are easily seen in publicplaces in the EXPO gardens in both Kunming and Shanghai. At the same time, theauthor does collect samples from various sources; for example, public signs in parks,in communities, in schools, in supermarkets in the cities Shanghai and Kumming. Wehave collected some 500 pictures of bilingual (Chinese-English) signs mainly in thecity Kunming, Shanghai and more than 100 pictures from other tourist cities such asZhang Jiajie and Changsha for reference and comparison.Public signs in the Expo garden stand for the latest materials in the field. ChapterThree classifies public signs in Expo garden into eight detailed categories, whichprovides references for future researches on this subject. Combining theory and examples, detailed analyses of"multi-dimensionaladaptations"and"selective adaptations"during the translating process of Expo publicsigns are carried out in Chapter Five and Six respectively. The following conclusionsare made in this thesis:First, a large amount of adaptations and selections are involved in the translatingprocess of Expo public signs, during which adaptation is the basis of selection;Second, translation of EXPO public signs is translator's adaptation to thetranslational eco-environment of public signs and translator's selection of bothadaptations and final-target texts of public signs;Third, translators should make multi-dimensional adaptations and selectionsfrom at least three dimensions, namely, adaptive selection in linguistic, cultural andcommunicative dimension. These dimensions are interrelated, and play their roles intranslators'multi-dimensional adaptation and adaptive selection. All these are broadlyconsidered to be important in translation field, which deserve translators'greatattention. Therefore, translators should keep the linguistic, communicative, cultural,and social factors in mind while doing translation;Forth, during translating process, translators of EXPO public signs are playing avital role in deciding the readability and acceptability of signs. Therefore, thetranslator's degree of consciousness does make sense in deciding the quality of thetranslated version. Only by improving translator's degree of consciousness can he/ shemake multi-dimensional adaptations and selections to specific translationaleco-environment so as to produce the translated versions with the highest degree ofholistic adaptation and selection.