Application of Relevance Theory Tourism Texts Translation
On the Application of Relevance Theory to Chinese-English Translation of Tourism Texts
I. Introduction
A. Background and purpose of this research Tourism industry has become a new highlight in the world economy following telecommunications and information industries. According to the estimates of the World Tourism Organization and many other insiders, China will be the world’s largest tourist receiving country with the capacity of hosting more than 1 .137 billion foreign tourists by the year of 2020. By virtue of its long history and splendid culture, China has made a breakthrough in tourism industry in the past three decades, during which the Chinese-English translation of the tourism texts played a pivotal role in promoting China’s spectacularity. However, the status quo of C-E translation of tourism texts is far from satisfactory, with malpractices like failure to convey the connotation of the Chinese versions cultural dislocation of the same objects, Chinese-styled English and redundancy. These malpractices may prevent westerners from obtaining useful information before they decide to take a trip to China and ultimately hinder the healthy development of China’s inbound tourism as a whole. Therefore, it is essential to better the translation of tourism materials for the sake of a better understanding of the unique charm of China and the visitors’ better enjoyment of their trips here.
B. Methodology of this study Based on the previous researches on C-E translation of tourism texts, this thesis attempts to approach it further under the guidance of relevance theory, which emphasizes the inferential nature of communication. And it maintains that a successful communication should guarantee adequate contextual effects without unnecessary processing efforts on the audience’s part. The materials used in this study are mainly collected from Chinese tourist brochures, journals and magazines. As this research involves language transfer between
I. Introduction
A. Background and purpose of this research Tourism industry has become a new highlight in the world economy following telecommunications and information industries. According to the estimates of the World Tourism Organization and many other insiders, China will be the world’s largest tourist receiving country with the capacity of hosting more than 1 .137 billion foreign tourists by the year of 2020. By virtue of its long history and splendid culture, China has made a breakthrough in tourism industry in the past three decades, during which the Chinese-English translation of the tourism texts played a pivotal role in promoting China’s spectacularity. However, the status quo of C-E translation of tourism texts is far from satisfactory, with malpractices like failure to convey the connotation of the Chinese versions cultural dislocation of the same objects, Chinese-styled English and redundancy. These malpractices may prevent westerners from obtaining useful information before they decide to take a trip to China and ultimately hinder the healthy development of China’s inbound tourism as a whole. Therefore, it is essential to better the translation of tourism materials for the sake of a better understanding of the unique charm of China and the visitors’ better enjoyment of their trips here.
B. Methodology of this study Based on the previous researches on C-E translation of tourism texts, this thesis attempts to approach it further under the guidance of relevance theory, which emphasizes the inferential nature of communication. And it maintains that a successful communication should guarantee adequate contextual effects without unnecessary processing efforts on the audience’s part. The materials used in this study are mainly collected from Chinese tourist brochures, journals and magazines. As this research involves language transfer between
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