A Study Of Public Sign Translation From The Perspective Of Cross-Cultural Communication

Public signs mean texts or graphics, which are faced with the public, providing instructive, informative, restrictive and mandatory information. Whether the quality of public sign translation is good or bad is shown in two aspects:first, it provides direct and effective help to foreign friends; second, it spreads China culture more widely, and makes the world know it and accept it. But unfortunately, nowadays, due to various reasons, there are many problems in Chinese-English public signs translation, and the two functions can not be achieved, what’s worse, it makes China feel humiliated.This paper discusses Chinese-English public signs translation from the angle of cross-cultural communication under the guidance of communication translation theory, illuminating the relationship among language, culture and translation:language is a reflection of culture, and culture influences the development of language; language learning and culture communication are interdependent. And translation is a kind of language activity in which one language is used to express the thought and content of another language completely as well as accurately, so as to achieve a fairly wide culture exchange and cross-cultural communication. From cross-cultural communication approaches, translation is not only to translate different languages, but also different cultures, so cultural difference should be taken into account in translation.Based on the theory, the paper expounds the definition and classification of public signs, the function of public signs, and language features of public signs. In public sign translation, the author thinks that the translator should consider text types of the target language, the readers’acceptability and translation purpose of intercultural communication, so as to seek for better translation method, and realize the two major practice functions of public signs:one is to provide direct and effective help for foreign friends; the other is to spread China culture further, make it known and accepted by the world.According to the functions and characteristics of public sign translation from the perspective of cross-cultural communication, the paper puts forward principles and methods in public sign translation. The principles are:fidelity; cross-cultural functional equivalence and briefness. The methods are:following established translation; amplification and omission; literal translation and free translation and mutual transformation of affirmative and negative expressions.