A Study Of Chinese-English Translation Of Public Signs From Cognitive Frame

Public signs, as a unique application style and an important part of language, are widely used and have extended to every aspect of our daily life. In recent years, as China’s economy has developed rapidly and China’s opening up and integration into the world have deepened at the same time, the exchanges between China and other countries are more and more frequent in such fields as economy, culture, education and so on. Therefore, more and more foreigners come to China to study, work, travel and live. In order to provide these people coming to China with convenience, more and more cities, especially metropolis, present corresponding translation of the public signs. Particularly, China is the successful organizer of Beijing Olympic Games, Shanghai World Expo and Guangzhou Asian Games, which highlights the increasing need for appropriate translation of public signs. Furthermore, the translation of public signs is not only an important aspect of the construction of harmonized international linguistic and cultural environment, but also the embodiment of spiritual outlook of city and cultural image. However, the translation of Chinese public signs into English at present is far from satisfactory, which puzzles and worries people a lot. In view of this, the thesis is an effort of utilizing the Cognitive Frame to carry out the research of translation of Chinese public signs into English.Charles Fillmore firstly introduced the concept of "frame" into linguistics. In his book Frame Semantics published in1982, he made further explanation about Frame theory, which was defined as "a cognitive structure""knowledge and concepts related to some recurrent situations" or "the representative of an object or event". Moreover, he pointed out that a frame is composed of certain fixed elements as well as a series of sub-frames which activate the frame. Due to the differences between linguistic frame systems and cultural frame systems of different nations, the seemingly corresponding linguistic expressions cannot activate the same cognitive frame of different languages.From the perspective of Frame theory, translation is regarded as a process whether the linguistic expressions in the target language can activate the same or similar frame as that in the source language. From the perspective of public signs translation, the English translation of public signs should not only stimulate the cognitive frame of public signs but also be in accordance with the characteristics of the frame of English public signs.The thesis is composed of the following five chapters:Chapter One is a brief introduction of the whole thesis. It presents the research background, purposes and significance of thesis, as well as data collection, research method and organization of the thesis. Chapter Two is the literature review, including the review of previous research of public signs translation both in China and abroad. Moreover, the limitations of previous researches are also included. In this way, it provides’the readers with an overview of the researches carried out before, covering not only their achievements, but also their deficiencies. Chapter Three serves as a thorough analysis of public signs. In this chapter, the definition, characteristics and limitations of public signs are introduced. Furthermore, it also presents categories of public signs in terms of different aspects, namely, functions; information states; contents, in order to render an all-round appearance of the public signs nowadays. Chapter Four is the main part of the thesis. It starts with the academic origins and evolution of Frame theory and then analyzes the features of cognitive and cultural differences of frame. In addition, it uncovers the relationship between translation and cognitive frame. Thus, it equals to a theoretical guideline for the further study of translation of public signs in the beginning of the chapter. In the latter part of this chapter, the thesis also focuses on the analysis of the translation of Chinese public signs into English from the perspective of Frame. Firstly, it discusses the errors that cause the mistranslation of the illustrating examples by means of Frame theory. Then, the thesis points out the suggested translation strategies of Chinese public signs into English. Chapter Five draws a conclusion of the thesis. In this chapter, the major findings are put forth. On the other hand, the limitations of the research and suggestions for further researches in this area are also discussed. The thesis will provide a new interpretation angle of public signs translation from the perspective of cognitive frame theory. Hopefully, this will shed new light on the further translation of public signs.