An Analysis Of Public Signs Translation From The Perspective Of Translation Ecology

Public si gns are written a nd graphic me ssages shown to the public, which aim atinforming, indicating, directing, prompting, warni ng, or marking useful infor mation to people.They are closely related to every aspect of people’s lives. Public signs target at ordinarypeople, overseas tourists, foreigners in China and people who travel or do business overseasetc, and include the basic public message of food, clothing, shelter, means of travel, tourism,recreation, purchase behaviors and so on.With the rapid development of China’s internationalization, the translation of publicsigns is drawing mo re and more attention from people. The application of public signs is sobroad that its magnificence is al so self-evident. More and more public places are providedwith English translation of public signs as to offe r convenience to foreigners, which has madea dispensable component of China’s opening up.What’s more, the previous researches discussed translation of public signs fr om theperspective of linguistic features, cultural features, modern aesthetics, functional features, andpragmatics, but the translati on ecology is seldom concerned. For compensation, this paper,taking the theory of translat ion ecology as the theoretical fr amework, seeks to find a newperspective for Chinese-English translation of public signs.Translation ecology is firstly put forward by Michael Cronin in his book Translation andGlobalization, published in2003. It is in a subsection of its Chapter Five “Translation andMinority Languages in a Global Setting” of which Professor Xu Jianzhong spoke highly. Heproposes that this research would be a vital contributi on to the study of interdiscipline and tothe development of new areas for the science of translation. Professor Xu Jianzhong gives thedefinition of translation ecology in his book Translation Ecology as “Translation ecologyexplores various translation phenomena and their explanations in the light of the principlesand mechanism of ecolo gy such as eco-system, ecological balance, and co-evolution, in orderto master the laws of translation development, to reveal the tendency of translationdevelopment”.Under the guidance of this theory, two important principles are proposed: the law ofrestricted factors and the flowerpot effect.The novelty of this paper is as follows:Firstly, applying the theory of translation ecology is a brand new perspective to the studyof Chinese-English translation of public signs.Secondly, two translational principles are proposed which are helpful to the translation ofpublic signs.This paper is made up of six parts:The first part is an introduction part which introduces the research object, significance,method, data collection and the structure of this paper. Chapter One is the literature review part which gives a general idea the current studytowards public signs home and abroad.Chapter Two of fers a theoretical framework of the theory of translation ecology andintroduces the basic knowledge of translation ecology, including definition, research objective,research task, method, significance and the ecological environment of translation. More over,it lays emphasis on two important principles: the principl e of restricted factors and theflowerpot effect.Chapter Three introduces basi c knowledge of public signs, including its definition,classification and linguistic functions. The author also proposes types of public signs used inthis paper.The fourth chapter is the core part. In this chapter, the author firstly analyzes theproblems existing in the translation of public signs, the causes of these problems and theecological environment of public signs translation. This chapter focuses on the application ofthis theory in the translation of public signs. The author discusses the application of the theoryof translation ecology by analyzing error translation of public signs. Finally, points to beavoided are proposed.The last part draws a conclusion. The author states the findings and stresses the twoimportant principles. In the end, the author puts forward suggestions for further researches onChinese-English translation of public signs.