Pragmatic Functions And English Translation Of Chinese Public Signs In Scenic Spots

This paper aims to make an empirical research on the English translation of public signs in scenic spots in Hunan Province, most of which are collected from the Hengshan Mountain scenic area and Hongjiang Ancient Commercial City. One is a famous natural scenic area and the other is a typical old city of historical and cultural interest. Thus public signs collected from these scenic areas are very representative, which enhances the value of this thesis.From the perspective of pragmatics, this paper analyzes pragmatic functions of public signs in scenic spots systematically and divides them into four categories, namely indicative, suggestive, restrictive and mandatory functions. It is not only of great significance for overseas tourists, but also the premise to do English translation of Chinese public signs in scenic spots. Then, it analyzes pragmatic failures of the English public signs in scenic spots in details, and divides them into two categories:one is pragmatic-linguistic failure, and the other socio-pragmatic failure. Then it makes a further discussion about why pragmatic failures take place, which has an instructive significance in improving the translation quality of English public signs. In this process, it involves the relevant pragmatic theory, such as the cooperative principles and politeness principles. The combination of these theories and translation practices well illustrates that this thesis helps to avoid pragmatic failures of public signs in scenic spots and explore the effective translation strategies under the premise of mastering pragmatic functions. Based on different pragmatic functions of public signs, translation strategy should be adjusted to the context. As to indicative public signs, we can take the simple-translation or not translating strategy; as to suggestive public signs, we can apply the simple-translation or borrowing-translation strategy; as to restrictive and mandatory public signs, we can use the borrowing-translation or shifting-perspective-translation. It not only has the guiding significance to translators engaged in this field, but also contributes to improving the English translation quality of Chinese public signs in scenic areas to some extent.