Astudy Of Translation Of Tourist Materials From The Perspective Of Nida’s Theory Of Functional Equivalence

With the rapid development of China’s economy and its comprehensive nationalstrength, together with China’s splendid history and culture, an increasing number ofpeople around the world come to travel in China in recent years. Translated touristmaterials are an important way for people around the world to know China. The qualityof translated tourist materials plays an important role in spreading Chinese culture andenhancing international communication.The last few decades have witnessed great development in translation of touristmaterials but many translated tourist materials are still far from satisfactory. Touristmaterials, as well as translated ones, are a kind of special text with both informative andvocative functions. However, through an analysis of quantitative data, this thesis findsout that many translated tourist materials haven’t realized these two functions. Based onNida’s Functional Equivalence, this thesis firstly makes a deep review of the theory, andthen an analysis of the functions of tourist materials and differences between Chineseand English tourist materials is also conducted. This thesis also makes an analysis ofmany translated tourist materials only to find that most of them are literal translation.Most translators of these translations have failed to consider whether their translationcould realize the informative and vocative functions or could provide foreign visitorswith correct information or whether their translation could arouse foreign visitors’interests in travelling. Obviously, these translations could do little help to thedevelopment of tourism and even do damage to the image of China. With the help ofFunctional Equivalence, this thesis proposes that in translation of tourist materials, inorder to achieve functional equivalence, translators should find closest naturalequivalence from three levels: lexical, stylistic and cultural level.Based on data analysis, the conclusion can be reached: firstly, due to its specialfunctions, translation of tourist materials focuses on the equivalence of information andtext function between source-text and target-text rather than on the equivalence oflanguage form; secondly, to effectively spread information and arouse people’s interests,translators should bear in mind target-language reader’s reading habit and their responseto the translated materials. They’d better use expressions that target-readers areaccustomed with to make their translation easily readable and acceptable. In this sense, Functional Equivalence could be very useful in guiding the translation of touristmaterials.Finally, from the perspective of Functional Equivalence, some translationstrategies and translation methods are suggested in order to achieve the goal oftranslation of tourist materials.