Translating Chinese Public Signs Into English For Foreign Publicity:an Adaptation-Theoretic Perspective

Thanks to30years of reforms and opening up, the achievement of economic development in China has attracted worldwide attention, in the meantime, the comprehensive national strength has been greatly strengthened and the influence of the remarkable all-round diplomatic achievements is increasing. In order to strengthen the publicity of China and make efforts to set up the national image, the Chinese government has begun to pay attention to the C-E translation of communication materials, especially the C-E translation of public signs. As an important means of China’s foreign publicity, translation is playing an increasingly indispensable role in international communication.As an important window for foreign publicity and for foreign friends to understand China, public signs provide those who come to China with a lot of convenience, and also help them better understand China and the Chinese culture. So, as an important means for international exchange, it is necessary to make the public signs standardized and perfect. Of course, there may still exist some inappropriate translation about public signs.This thesis aims to study the C-E translation of public signs based on the Adaptation Theory. Verschueren proposes that the use of language is a constant process of making language choices, and no matter the language users are conscious or not, they will make a variety of options. This is because language has three properties:negotiation, variability and adaptation. This theory provides a new perspective for us to study public signs, and provides certain practical values to purify the C-E translation of public signs.