Translation Of Tourism Texts Under The Guidance Of The Text Type Theory

In recent years, tourism industry has become one of the most active and fastest-growing industries in China. However, there are many problems in the English versions of tourism texts. In this translation project, the translator has selected Anyang’s tourism texts as the source text in an attempt to do translation as well as to carry out a study of tourism translation. This translation report gives an overall and systematic analysis of the selected source text at lexical, syntactic and textual levels, under the guidance of Katharina Reiss and Newmark’s text type theories. Furthermore, some translation strategies and methods used in the project are also discussed and summarized in this report. This may provide some valuable references for further translation study of tourism texts.This report is composed of five parts: task description, process description, textual analysis, case study and conclusions. Task description is divided into two sections: text introduction and the significance of this translation project. Some background information of the selected source text is presented in the first section, such as its source, length, contents and text type. As for the significance of this project, the report further explains its realistic and academic values in the second section. The second part of the report describes the translation procedure of the selected source text from three aspects: preparatory work before translating, translating and proof-reading after translating. Following this, some features of the selected source text are systematically analyzed at its lexical, syntactic and textual levels in the third part. Specifically, the translator has identified some features at the lexical level: a great number of Chinese culture-loaded words such as technical terms in Chinese architecture, old official titles in Chinese culture and honorary titles in feudal Chinese society, together with semi-fixed four-character phrases and four-character phrases with reduplications. Chinese culture-loaded words carry information that is specifically Chinese and thus unique culturally. In these texts, the spots are usually introduced by mentioning and elaborating on their famous architectures, historical stories, anecdotes of eminent people and so on, and as a result there are a large number of culture-loaded words in these passages. As a Chinese-specific phenomenon, four-character phrases possess some distinctive features such as balanced syllables, rhythmic beauty, concise diction, closely-knit structure, and a strong expressive power(Pan, 2004). These features make the phrases qualified for a vivid and attractive description of scenic spots in the Chinese tourism texts. At the syntactic level, the texts contain many run-on sentences and couplets. As two outstanding features of the source text, they fully demonstrate the characteristics of Chinese language. Run-on sentences usually focus on a key theme in the texts, which frequently are used in the Chinese tourism texts. On the other hand, as a Chinese-specific literary genre, couplets, especially classic couplets, are often quoted in the tourism texts to upgrade the spots’ reputation and popularity. At the textual level, the report has studied three devices: reference, lexical reiteration and ellipsis of the subject which all contribute to textual cohesion and coherence. As the most important part of the report, the fourth part presents a detailed explanation of the translation strategies and methods used in this project through a careful analysis of the examples which are introduced in the third part. The last part, namely conclusions, is a summary of the findings, limitations and suggestions for Chinese-English translation of tourism texts. The translator hopes this report will be beneficial for other translators in the future who work on researches and practices of tourism translation.