On Translating Lonely Planet Sri Lanka In Terms Of Informative Communication

Peter Newmark’s communicative translation attempts to produce on its readers v effect as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original. It is applicable tothe translation of informative text，which should achieve the information equivalencebetween the source text and the target text. Lonely Planet Sri Lanka is a tourism text,which mainly introduces tourist information about Sri Lanka. It is considered to be aninformative text. The receiver of the target text is Chinese backpackers who visit SriLanka. The motive for the target text production is to provide them with touristinformation. The source text is characterized by special information such as geographicnames, religious information, food names and animal names. To achieve the informationequivalence between the source text and the target text, the target readers’ knowledge,demand and interest should be taken into consideration and thus informationcompensation method should be mainly used for special information translation. Totranslate the English geographic names, bilingual versions and paraphrases are the bestmethods while some other geographic names written in local language can be dealt withzero translation. To translate religious information such as names of religious figures andnames of foods and activities related to religion, paraphrases should be adopted. Totranslate some of the food names and animal names which may interest the target readersbut are unfamiliar to them, paraphrases introducing the foods’ ingredients, cookingmethods, ways to eat and the taste or the animals’ distinctive appearance and living habitsare necessary. With the development of intercultural communication in the world, thetranslation methods of this special information will also change. On the basis ofcommunicative translation theory, flexible translation methods can be carried out. Thelimitation of the communicative translation is that it pays no attention to the effect that thetranslation produces on its readers in the social and cultural context of the target language.