Common Translation Errors In The English Overviews Of Chinese University Web Pages And Their Solutions

With the rapid development of China’s economy, its higher education has also become more and more mature and its exchanges and cooperation with foreign universities become more and more common. For the purpose of exchanges with the outside world, the web pages of many Chinese universities have got English versions which mainly serve the foreign scholars, students and those who are willing to conduct cooperation and exchanges with Chinese universities in foreign countries. The quality of the translation has a direct impact on the universities’international image. However, for various reasons, many English versions of the universities’overviews are imperfect enough, which will bring many potential negative impacts on the universities. However, the researches in this area are not comprehensive in China now.The normally word-for-word translation versions are often completed by young teachers or postgraduates in universities who lack translation experience and are deeply influenced by the traditional translation standards. The translators often overlook the feelings of target readers, as well as the expected functions of the target text. Therefore, for the target readers, there are a lot of redundant information and inappropriate expressions.In2011,I participated in the translation of the School of Music of Central China Normal University, and had a two-month internship in a service center for oversea studies, through which I knew the importance of the translation of universities’overviews as well as how to translate them well. Therefore, I planned to write this thesis to put forward my views about the main translations errors and relative solutions.It firstly gives an overview of the background of the research, presents the language and cultural differences between the Chinese university overview texts and English ones, and then lists the translation errors which cover the language and functional errors existing in the English overviews of Chinese university web pages, and goes on to analyze the errors in details and suggests possible improvement by offering the author’s own versions. At last, the thesis discusses what strategies and methods should be adopted in the translation of the overviews of Chinese university web pages.