Lost and Found in Translating Tourist Texts

Lost and Found in Translating Tourist Texts
Domesticating, Foreignising or Neutralising Approach
He Sanning, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology

ABSTRACT
Domesticating and foreignising strategies are popular in translation studies and each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages in translating tourist texts. The advantages for domesticating include maintaining the terseness of the text, obtaining the reader‘s understanding of the translated text, and gaining the interest of the reader. Its biggest weakness is that the cultural and historical elements of the original could be lost in translation. The advantages for foreignising are revealing the cultural and historical factors of the Source Text (ST), and disseminating the cu lture and customs of the original.
Its disadvantages are neglecting the reader‘s understanding, and the function of attracting the tourists may be lost. This paper argues that neither of them can solve all the problems associated with translating tourist t exts from Chinese to English. The major focus of this paper is to find a new translation strategy that can highlight and introduce
Chinese culture to the target audience and keep Chinese culture intact. This neutralising strategy with its information-oriented, association-applied and concept-based principles can be employed to ensure the equivalents in information, concept and aesthetics.
KEYWORDS
Domesticating and foreignising, advantages and disadvantages, neutralising, informationoriented, association-applied, concept-based.

1. Cultural Translation and Translating Culture
When we discuss the translation of tourist texts from Chinese to English, it is very important to make a distinction between the two terms ‗translating culture‘ and ‗cultural translation‘. Translating culture, in a narrow sense, refers to the act of transferring meaning from one specific culture -bearing language to another. Cultural translation refers to a

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