Error Analyses On English-language Public Signs In Shanghai Shopping Malls

This thesis focuses primarily on an error analysis of the English-language public signsin the most bustling and hustling commercial areas in Shanghai: Xujiahui, HuaihaiRd., Lujiazui, and West Nanjing Road. In addition to offering a collection ofEnglish-language translation errors from the major shopping malls of Shanghai, thisthesis also investigates some of the errors in previous publications onEnglish-language public-sign translation, which to a degree have misled the public fora long time. However, this thesis is not confined to error analyses using Nida’sfunctional equivalence theory as a foundation; this thesis also proposes constructivestrategies for avoiding future errors.The introduction to this thesis presents the significance of this research, undertakes aliterature review, and describes research methods. The first chapter presents anoverview of English-language public signs in Shanghai shopping malls. The secondchapter focuses primarily on Nida’s functional equivalence theory as applied intranslating English-language public signs. The third chapter classifies and analysesthe mistranslation of the signs in shopping malls. The fourth chapter offers solutionsfor dealing with the errors in English-language sign translation. The fifth chaptersummarizes and concludes the thesis. The point of this thesis is to determine whytranslators make mistakes, and how they can avoid these mistakes. As such, this is asignificant research with academic merit.