Research On The Public Sign Translations In Yichang City From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

As a kind of special applied writing, public signs can be seen everywhere and adopted to direct, prompt, restrict, compel and inform the public. Nowadays, public signs are widely used in our daily life. With the booming economic development and the deepening of China’s reform and opening up, the friendly intercourses and economic cooperation between China and other countries in the world have kept growing day by day. The number of foreigners who invest, travel and study in China has been increasing these years, which makes the Chinese-English translation of public signs an urgent task for many cities. Public signs in many cities in China are coupled with their English counterparts now. Chinese and English bilingual public signs are an important part of foreign publicity, so the quality of the public sign translation affects a city’s development and image directly. Therefore, research on public sign translations is of great practical value.Yichang is an emerging international tourism city. Tens of thousands of foreigners come here to travel, work or study. However, through our investigation and analysis, the inadequate translations and mistranslations of public signs crop up because of some reasons such as different levels of translation competence, not only failing to facilitate the foreigners’traveling and living but also affecting the city image and the process of internationalization of Yichang. Therefore, the author of this thesis chooses the Chinese-English translation of public signs in Yichang City and a few scenic spots around the city as the object of study with the objective of exposing the existing problems of public signs translation, causes of these problems and strategies for solving them. It is hoped that this research can promote the standardized development of the market for public signs translation in Yichang and the urban cultural construction of this city.According to Skopostheorie, the translation process is determined by the prospective function or Skopos of the target text. Vermeer (1978) claims that any translation activity has its own purpose, on which the translation establishes its own translation method. The target readers play an important role in determining the purpose of the translation. Public signs emphasize the intention and function of language and attach more importance to the reproduction of the source language’s function and the target readers’response. Thus, this thesis takes Skopostheorie as the guiding theory for translating public signs.This thesis is composed of five chapters. Chapter One gives a general introduction to this thesis, containing the research questions, research purpose, significance, research methods and organization of the thesis. Chapter Two is the literature review, which contains the present situation of the study on Chinese-English translation of public signs and an overview of Skopostheorie and application of Skopostheorie to public sign translation. Chapter Three includes definition, classification, language features and functions of public signs. Chapter Four firstly introduces the present Chinese-English public signs translation in Yichang, and then focuses on the errors of Chinese-English public signs translation in this city and causes of these errors based on Skopostheorie. The strategies and principles for Chinese-English translation of public signs are put forward. Chapter Five includes the summary of the whole thesis, limitations of this study and the recommendations for future research.