A Study Of English Translation Of Public Signs In Quanzhou Scenic Spots From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

With the promotion of the Belt and Road Initiatives,foreign languages are being used more and more frequently in the communications among cities and countries.Regarded as city cards,public signs play a significant role in public areas.Quanzhou with its long history and perfect accessibility,makes a rapid development in its tourism.However,there are still some translation problems on public signs in Quanzhou scenic spots.To improve the tourism development,research of the public signs in Quanzhou scenic spots is in great need.Basing on the theoretical framework of Skopos Theory,this research aimed to make an analysis of the translation problems of public signs in Quanzhou scenic spots,and sum up some translation methods suitable for them.There are two main findings in the thesis.Firstly,the common translation errors of public signs in Quanzhou scenic spots can be divided into three broad categories: errors in language level,pragmatic level,and cultural level.Among which errors in the language level are spelling errors,grammatical errors and inappropriate diction;errors in pragmatic level are rigid translation and multiple translation of words;errors in cultural level include wrong cultural perspectives and cultural image loss.Secondly,this thesis put forward six translation methods of public signs in Quanzhou's scenic spots including literal translation,transliteration plus literal translation,annotation,free translation,loan translation and omission.The second finding was figured out by an analysis of the characteristics and functions of these informative,expressive and operative public signs which were divided by Text Typology.Informative public signs focus on message transmission,so the choice of literal translation can be straightforward to translate the original meaning;when it comes to translations of scenic spots' names with informative function,transliteration plus literal translation will be a good way;some informative public signs need to supplement the original information with annotation.The expressive public signs can use literal translation and free translation to convey the original(or the author's)feelings.Operative functions of public signs can be transmitted by means of loan translation,literal translation and omission.