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On the Translation of Scenic Spots' Introduction

by

Thesis Advisor:

Submitted to the B.A.Committee in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in the English Department of School of Foreign Languages of Langfang Teachers College May 2011

廊坊师范学院

本科生毕业论文

题 目： 旅游景点介绍的翻译

学生姓名：

指导教师： 二级学院： 系 别： 专 业： 年 级： 学 号：

完成日期： 2011年5月10日

Title: On the translation of scenic spots' introduction

Abstract: With the deepening of China's opening-up and the flourish of tourism industry, the translation of tourism materials has become translators’ important task.As a neceary element of tourism materials, scenic spots’ translation arouses more and more attention throughout China.How to make the precise translation out of the piled tourism materials is the problem the translators have to deal with.This paper mainly focuses on the translation of scenic spots' introduction which plays a significant role in the development of tourism industry.It introduces the common errors and theory foundations prevailing, and provides some poible solutions, intending to make the best version of the translation.Key words: scenic spots’ translation;Functional Equivalence;receptors’

response

题目：旅游景点介绍的英译

摘要： 随着中国对外开放和旅游产业的蓬勃发展，旅游资料的翻译成为了译者们的重要任务。作为旅游资料的重要组成部分，旅游景点的介绍引起了译者们越来越多的关注。如何在浩繁的旅游资料中获得精确的翻译成为译者们需要处理的非常迫切的问题。本论文着重探讨旅游景点介绍的翻译，因为这在旅游业发展过程中起到举足轻重的作用。该文章介绍了旅游景点介绍翻译过程中常见的错误和著名的翻译理论，并提出一些可行的解决办法以获得最好的翻译文本。

关键字：旅游景点翻译;功能对等;读者反馈

Contents

I.Introduction ………………………………………………………………….....1 A.General statement..........................................................................................1 B.Neceity of the precise translation of scenic spots’ translation....................2 II.Existing problems and causes of translation of scenic spots’ introduction.........3 A.Existing problems..........................................................................................3 B.Causes of unsatisfied translation...................................................................5 III.Prevailing translating theory..............................................................................6 A.Two levels of functional equivalence...........................................................6 B.Receptor’s response.......................................................................................7 IV.Poible solutions to existing problems.............................................................8 A.Addition.........................................................................................................8 B.Deletion..........................................................................................................8 C.Restructuring.................................................................................................9 D.Adjustment...................................................................................................10 E.Analogy........................................................................................................11 V.Conclusion.........................................................................................................12 Works Cited...........................................................................................................13

Acknowledgements

My sincere gratitude first goes to Mr.Gong, my supervisor, for his constructive suggestions, valuable ideas, great patience and encouragement.Without his help, the completion of this thesis would have been impoible.I owe great gratitude to all the teachers in the English Department.Their lectures and instructions have been of great help to my study.I would also like to expre my thanks to my friends for their constant concern, generous help, and meaningful comments on the study.Finally, I must say I owe gratitude to my parents.Their love and encouragement have supported me to overcome difficulties and achieve the final succe.I.Introduction A.General Statement Tourism industry is called the “Industry without Smoke” and has become one of the significant forces which step up the development of the economy.China is a country which is rich in various touring resources, and has a rather large touring market with great potential, thus attracts countle foreigners from abroad every year.Especially after China achieving the acce to the World Trade Organization, tourism industry is becoming more and more commercial and globalized.As the important carriers of tourism information, scenic spots introductions are often used directly by tourism products promoters and potential consumers.Qualified scenic spots introductions can not only provide detailed tourism information but also attract more tourists.English versions of Chinese scenic spots introductions, should achieve the same aims, because it is the translated versions of tourism texts that have become the critical approaches to spread Chinese culture to the world and promote the development of Chinese tourism industry（Zhang Chunbo:25）.However, in many cases the translated version is unsatisfactory more or le in China.Since the quality of the tourism materials affects the foreign tourists directly and has a fundamental influence on their comprehension of China’s culture, how to make the precise translation out of the piled tourism materials is a severe problem the translators are confronted with.Translation is a complicated thinking activity which can communicate the information between two different cultures by means of linguistic symbols(杨忠：120).And then, what is the standard of a satisfied translation? The adequacy of translations has traditionally been judged on the basis of the correspondence in lexicon and grammar between the source and target languages.The correspondence has frequently been stated in terms of “equivalence,” even though the equivalence is often not used.There is, however, a serious problem involved in discuing the adequacy of a translated text primarily in terms of lexical and grammatical features, or even in terms of discourse structures.Translating means communicating, and this proce depends on what is received by persons hearing or reading a translation.Judging the validity of a translation cannot stop with a comparison of corresponding lexical meaning,grammatical claes, and rhetorical devices（Li Ming: 23）.What is important is the extent to which the receptors understand and appreciate the translated text.According to Eugene Nida: It is eential that functional equivalence be stated primarily in terms of a comparison of the way in which the original receptors correctly understood and appreciated the text and the way in which the receptors of the translated text understand and appreciate the translated text(2001:113).In this thesis the author introduces some common problems in the translation of scenic spots’ introduction and translating theories prevailing nowadays.Upon the theories, this paper attempts to provide some poible solutions to the translation of scenic spots’ translation.B.Neceity of precise translation of scenic spots’ introduction

China is an ancient civilized country which has inherited innumerable cultural relics from our ancestors.With a vast territory, it embraces a lot of awesome scenic spots that have brought into China millions of foreigners to enjoy themselves.As globalization deepens, the scale of the tourists from abroad is on a sharp increase.And according to the World Trade Organization, China will become the No.1 touring destination by 2020, when there will have been about 137,000,000 people to tour.Therefore, our country first put forward the slogan in 2000: China will persist to turning itself from the strong touring country of Asia to the world.Considering those, we have known that tourism has become a sunrise industry.Owing to the cultural differences between China and western countries, there are many difficulties in the translation proce.Many translators are accustomed to translate scenic-spot introductions based on Chinese mindset and ways of expreion.As a result, inaccuracies and mistakes can often be seen in the translated texts（Wen Jun: 43）.In today’s China, the translation quality of scenic-spot introductions is far from satisfaction due to countle spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes, and cultural misinterpretations, etc.Therefore, the translation of scenic-spot introductions and the research on it is neceary and urgent.Hence, the development of our sunrise industry neceitates the precise translation of scenic spots’ introduction.II.Existing problems and causes in translation of scenic spots’ introduction A.Existing problems

The scenic-spot introduction translations specially provide service for foreign tourists.The large cultural gap between China and the western countries makes the translation of Chinese scenic-spot introductions, which contains a lot of cultural elements, a hard nut for the translating job.The translators not only have to have a good command of both Chinese and English, but also be highly proficient in intercultural transfer.The readers of scenic-spot translation are a group of special audience who know little about Chinese culture and language, so translation plays a significant role in publicizing China.Although increasing attention has been paid to this field, the quality of translation is still far from satisfactory.So in this part, we are going to look into some cases of inappropriate and even false translation, so as to have an analysis of the existing problems in the English translation of Chinese scenic-spot introductions.In this way we may know more about the linguistic style, cultural features and expreional skills about appropriate English introductions of scenic spots.Example1:

(SL)[1]: 南山，面朝南海，是中国最南端的山。

(TL)[2]: Nanshan Mountain(South Mountain), facing Chinese South Sea, is the southernmost mountain in China.In the first example, “ 南海” is translated into “Chinese South Sea”, however, the correct English translation of “南海” is the “South China Sea”.So a more adequate translation should be like this: Nanshan Mountain(South Mountain), facing South China Sea, is the southernmost mountain in China.Example2:(SL):孔子（公元前551-前419年）是中国儒家学说的创始人。

(TL):Confucius(551～419BC)was the founder of the Confucius school of thought.In this example, “儒家学说” is translated as “the Confucius school of thought”.It’s not wrong, but it seems more like an explanation than a translation.In English, the word “Confucianism” can expre exactly the meaning of the Chinese expreion “儒家学说”.Therefore, there is no need to translate it as: “the Confucius school of thought” or “the thoughtof Confucius”.Example3:

(SL):感悟人生，感悟泥性，感悟瓷韵悠悠。(TL): Feel the life, feel the porcelain, and feel the history.The three “感悟” in the source language make the sentence paralleled and impreive, and it has achieved an effect of emphasis.In the target language, the word “feel” is also repeated for three times.Unfortunately, rather than have the same effect as its Chinese counterpart, this repetition makes no difference but making the whole sentence monotonous and tedious.To be more attractive and impreive, we can revise it by using different words sharing similar concept.Besides the monotonous translation of “感悟”, the word “porcelain” is not properly used here.Porcelain is hard white translucent material made from china clay, but it is not clay any longer.Therefore, it cannot expre the meaning “泥性”.The refined version:

Touch the clay, know the history, and feel the life.Example4:(SL):“黄龙吐翠”（西湖十景之一）

(TL): “Yellow Dragon Spits Green”（《市民日常外语会话》北京新华出版社）The Chinese name “黄龙吐翠” has two meanings: On the one hand, it means that a clear spring is flowing out from the Yellow Dragon Cave;on the other hand, it infers that the whole scenic spot(Yellow Dragon Cave)is surrounded by green trees.The character “吐”here means present or look, when it is translated into “spit” in English, the meaning has completely been changed.Because “spit” often means “spitting saliva”, which gives us an unpleasant impreion.Example5:(SL):舟的前方驾着一柄长舵，形如关云长的青龙偃月刀。

(TL)„is shaped like the sword in traditional Beijing opera used by Guan Yu, a general of the state of Shu of the Three Kingdom period(220-280A.D).It seems as if this translation is quite adequate, for it has added some information to explain about the sword and its master Guan Yu.However, this addition is nearly of no use.After reading this introduction, the foreign tourists still can’t figure out what is the sword like, for they don’t know anything about Guan Yu at all unle they have watched the Beijing opera.Thus in this sense, this explanation is completely invalid.It produces no effect other than making the whole sentence redundant.Maybe another simpler version will be better: „is shaped like the knife on the westerners’ dinner table.This version has omitted the invalid information, so it’s much more concise.What’s more important is that it sounds familiar to the foreign tourists and they can understand what the sword looks like immediately when they see this introduction.B.Causes of unsatisfied translation Language capacity of a translator is the fundamental element which influences the quality of translated version directly.A good master of listening, speaking, reading, and writing of a foreign language and mother tongue is only the first step to make a satisfied translation;furthermore, the translator should strive to grasp the eence of two different cultures.According to Wang Zuoliang: A translator must be a cultured man(1984)； that is to say “Learning a language is a kind of learning the culture and the habit of the country where the language is spoken”.Culture is the core, the source and the energy of tourism’s prosperity.And it is just the cultural elements contained in tourism materials bring about big difficulties to tourism materials’ translation, since the differences in the culture of Chinese and English are inevitably reflected in the proce of language translation.Language is the carrier of culture, different geographical environments, historical conditions, religious beliefs, and social customs of different countries give birth to different cultures and languages.Culture is what the society thinks about and do, in turn language is the expreion of thoughts(Sapir,Edward,2002).The close relationship between culture and language are tightly aociated with translation.However, translation is not merely the transformation on the linguistic surface layer, but the communication and transplant of two different cultures.“For truly succeful translating, biculturalism is even more important than bilingualism, since words only have meanings in terms of the cultures in which they function.”(Nida, 2001: 82)

III.Prevailing translating theory

The main goal of translation is, no doubt, to establish a particular type of correspondence between the source text and the target text.The nature of the correspondence has been referred to “faithfulne” or “fidelity”, or more predominantly, the notion of “equivalence”.The term “equivalence” in translation first appeared in J.R.Firth’s writing when she stated that “the so-called translation equivalents between two languages are never really equivalent”(Snell, 2002: 37).With the development of linguistics and the study of translation in 1960s, “translation equivalence” became the focus of study.A.Two levels of functional equivalence

In the 1990s, Nida perfects his theory by taking the language and cultural differences into consideration.In his book Language, Culture and Translating, Nida puts functional equivalence into two levels according to the degree of adequacy: the minimal equivalence and the maximum equivalence.The definition of minimal functional equivalence is “The readers of a translated text should be able to comprehend it to the point that they can conceive of how the original reader of the text must have understood and appreciated it”(Nida, 1993: 118).Anything le than this degree of equivalence should be unacceptable.The maximum functional equivalence can be stated as “The readers of a translated text should be able to understand and appreciate it in eentially the same manner as the original readers did.” The maximum level of equivalence is rarely achieved except for texts having little or no aesthetic value and involving only routine information since it requires a higher degree of language-culture correspondence.Nida’s functional equivalence theory puts emphasis on cultural factors in translation.In Nida’s view, “The most serious mistakes in translating are usually made not because of verbal inadequacy, but of wrong cultural aumptions”(Nida, 1993: 29).If regardle of the cultural differences, the receptors will find the translation requiring so many efforts to understand that they are likely to stop reading, unle they are highly motivated.Therefore, for a truly succeful translating, biculturalism is even more important than bilingualism(Nida, 1993: 110).In a word, Nida’s functional equivalence theory has offered a convincing answer to the disputes over literal and free translation lasting for 200 years and gives priority to the receptor over the forms of the language.B.Receptors’ response

When evaluating a translation, some translation theories just concentrate on meage-conveyance of the target language, neglecting the role of receptors.Their main concern is that the meage in the target language should match as closely as poible the different elements in the source language.Therefore they make constant comparison between the meage in the source culture and the meage in the target culture to determine standards of accuracy and correctne.Enlightened by the communication theory, Nida attaches great importance to the role of receptor and the relationship between receptor and meage by saying that “It is eential that functional equivalence be stated primarily in terms of a comparison of the way in which the original receptors understand and appreciate the text and the way in which receptors of translated text understand and appreciate the translated text”(Nida, 1993: 116).According to Nida, the target audience for which a translation is made almost always constitutes a major factor in determining the translation procedures and the level of language to be employed.In producing a functional equivalence translation one must be constantly aware of the capacity and motivation of receptors(Jin Di &Nida, 2006:89).In other words, how to translate a meage first depends on whether the target receptors can understand it or not.According to Nida, the functional equivalence is based upon the “principle of equivalence effect”.It is of great importance to estimate how well the receptors understand and appreciate the translated text.What’s more, Nida’s ideal situation is that the target receptors’ response to the target text should be the same to the original receptors’ response to the original text.Therefore, judging the quality of a translation cannot stop with a comparison of corresponding lexical meaning, grammatical claes and rhetorical devices, but with whether the translated text has the same effect on the receptors as the original text has on the original receptors.IV.Poible solutions to the existing problems From the examples and analysis in last part, we can see the fact that the inefficiency is mainly caused by the translators’ neglect of the target language’s linguistic features and the target receptors’ cultural conventions.As Nida argues that “For truly succeful translating, biculturalism is even more important than bilingualism”(Nida, 1993:110), cultural factor usually plays a more important role in scenic-spot introduction translation.As a matter of fact, linguistic factor and cultural factor usually coexist in a scenic-spot introduction, and cannot be separated.Therefore, the translator shall take both of them into consideration simultaneously.Considering the existing problems of Chinese scenic-spot introductions we have discued in last part, some poible solutions to these problems will be suggested in the following.A.Addition To Chinese readers who share the same cultural background knowledge with the writer, they seldom have difficulty in understanding the introduction.But to foreign tourists, as they know little or no about the background knowledge, it’s never an easy thing to understand it.Therefore, it is better to add notes to help foreign tourist understand the information, so as to compensate the cultural default of target readers.For example:

(SL):路左有一巨石，石上原有苏东坡手书“云外流春”四个大字。

(TL):To its left is another rock formerly engraved with four big characters “Yun Wai Liu Chun”(Beyond clouds flow spring)written by Su Dongpo, the most versatile poet of the Northern Song Dynasty(960-427)If we just use Chinese “Yun Wai Liu Chun” here, foreign tourists will not be able to know the meaning of the four characters.In addition, almost every Chinese know who Su Dongpo is, but foreigners know nothing about him.The amplification of this famous poet here works well in compensating the cultural default of target readers and helps to show the high value of the four characters.B.Deletion As we know, Chinese scenic-spot introductions have some prominent features such as flowery expreions, rich rhetorical devices, paralleled structures, abundant citations, etc.By contrast, language for English scenic-spot introductions is characterized by precise sentence structure, plain expreion, logic and rational writing, concise and natural diction, etc.In orderto conform to the aesthetic standard of target readers, the unneceary information and flowery decorations should be deleted so that a functional equivalence can be achieved.For example:(SL): 揽八百里微微武夷，扼三千里滔滔赣江，天地造化，租就瑞金山水的神奇，这里，钟秀毓秀，风藏气聚。

(TL): Here is a wonderful place famous for its natural beauties of huge green mountains and clear water.In the English version, the translation omits the redundancy without influencing the information transmiion.(SL): 久负盛名的大东海水如碧、沙如脂、景如画。

(TL): Dadonghai is a famous scenic spot and a gift given by nature, the sea like jade, the sand like rouge, the scenery like picture.It is one of the sentences in the introduction of Dadonghai, a famous scenic spot in Sanya city in Hainan province.This translation is a typical word-for-word translation: 水=water, 如=like, 碧=jade;沙=sand, 如=like, 脂=rouge;景 =scenery, 如=like, 画=picture.The translator attempts to imitate the expreion of the source language so faithfully that the translation is of no normal use.For the foreign tourists, it sounds awkward and is hard to understand.A refined version can be like this: Dadonghai is well-known for its clear water, white sand and picturesque scenery.C.Restructuring(SL):孔庙的东侧是孔府，是孔子嫡长孙实习的府第。

(TL)The Kong Family Mansion lies east of the Confucius Temple, being the place of eldest direct male descendants of Confucius lived and worked.This English translation is grammatically correct, but the sentence structure is not well organized.It’s clear that the location of the mansion is only minor information while the purpose is the focal point of the whole sentence.But in the translation, the minor information is placed in the main clause and the main idea in the subordinate clause, making the structure rather awkward.So the translation should be changed into: Lying to the east of the Confucius Temple, the Mansion of Confucius is the place where the eldest direct male descendants of Confucius lived and worked.(SL):古城池总面积 2.25 平方千米，至今还居住着4.2万城市居民, 基本保持着明清时期(公元 1368—1911 年)的历史风貌。

(TL):It(the ancient city)occupies a total area of 2.25 sq km, has a population of 42,000, and largely maintains its historical appearance of the Ming and Qing periods(1368 ～ 1911).Such a long sentence as the source language in this example is smooth and coherent, without any problem.But when more than one English sentence is piled up without any connectives, just like the English translation in this example, they form a very unnatural and awkward sentence, which fails to conform to the features of English.A better translation would be to replace the former part of the sentence with a prepositional phrase, so that the three paralleled clauses can be turned into a complex sentence as follows:

With a total area of 2.25 sq km and a population of 42,000, the ancient city largely maintains its historical appearance of the Ming and Qing Dynasties(1368～1911).D.Adjustment A nation’s thinking pattern is shaped by cultural elements which keep accumulating themselves during the course of history.Chinese people are used to thinking in a comprehensive mode, streing relationship between parts and they tend to beat around the bush.However, westerners usually think and act in a direct way.In writing, many Chinese writers spend time on minor things which serve as foil for the major parts.In contrast, westerners usually put important parts in main clause or at the beginning of a sentence in a straight –forward way.Here is an example:(SL):襟江带湖的优越地理位置，自然景观与人文景观的和谐交融，组合成 以庐山山体为主，呈环状向四周辐射的风景名胜区。在这座完整的山 岳型风景名胜区内，散布着远古文化遗迹 20 余出。中古文化遗迹 600 余处，景点 474 处，现存摩崖石刻 900 余处，碑刻 300 多块，它们以 瀑泉、山石、气象、植物、地质、江湖、人文、别墅建筑为类型错落 在景区内，与长江、鄱阳湖相依、相融、相映，形成了它鲜明的个性 和独特的魅力，使人们在与自然的亲和中，随深邃的人文而进入一个 崇高的心灵之壤，去认识庐山真面目。

(TL)Its natural and cultural charms are represented by more than 600 cultural relics, 474 scenic spots, and 900 inscriptions on rocky cliffs, 300 tablet inscriptions as well as architectures both in Chinese traditional and foreign styles dotted in the mountain’s scenic areas.E.Analogy In the analogy, cultural information in the source language is transferred into what is familiar to the target readers.Thus it helps the foreign tourists who have little knowledge about Chinese culture to have a rough understanding of what is in the source text, so that the cultural differences are overcome and cro-cultural communication is achieved.A frequently cited example is given bellow to show the employment of this method.(SL):济公劫富济贫，深受贫苦百姓爱戴。

(TL): Ji Gong, Robin Hood in China, robbed the rich and helped the poor.In this example, Ji Gong is compared to Robin Hood in the west so that foreign tourists can understand why he was so respected in China.The poible solutions provided above are based on the application of Nida’s functional equivalence theory.The present author sincerely hope the present thesis could be of some help to improve the quality of the translation of Chinese scenic-spot introduction.V.Conclusion With more and more foreign tourists visit the scenic-spots in China, many Chinese scenic-spot introductions have been translated to serve them.However, the translation quality of these scenic-spot introductions is far from satisfaction due to countle spelling mistakes grammar mistakes and cultural misinterpretations, etc.Therefore, the study on the English translation of Chinese scenic-spot introductions is extremely neceary and imperfect.The translation of tourism materials plays a key role in the publication of our touring resources to foreigners.The quality of the translated version influences the tourism industry directly.A good-qualified translated material which the tourists are satisfied with will inspire their interests in a scenic spot, and make them to pay a visit to China finally.However, a bad-translated version does not only reduce their desire to visit China, but also damage the future development of our tourism industry.At present, there are a number of problems existing in the translation of introductions to Scenic Spots.Besides the language mistakes, many other problems are also prevalent.Some versions, which cannot be understood by the foreign tourists at all, are just done word for word from Chinese introduction.Some versions, which indeed read fluently, lost the Chinese culture and wholly become foreignized.In a word, the above problems are all owing to the reason: The translator cannot grasp the spirits of the source text, which include our Chinese culture, and cannot get the correct interpretation of the translation from the analysis of the extratextual factors.In the present thesis, the common problems in the Chinese scenic-spot translation are carefully analyzed and some strategies are provided.In many cases translators overlook cultural default in the source text, resulting in understanding gap for target readers.Thus, they should try to lay a firm foundation of language and get a general and detailed knowledge of two cultures;only in this way are they able to produce a truly precise and satisfied translation and provide a more powerful energy for the development of tourism industry.Works Cited

Eugene, A.Nida.Language, Culture and Translating.Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education pre, 1993.Eugene, A.Nida.Language and Culture: Contexts in Translating.Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Pre, 2001.Jin Di & Nida.On Translation.Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Pre, 2006.Sapir.Edward.Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech.Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching And Research Pre,2002.Hornby.Snell.Which “global village”? :Societies,Cultures,andPolitical-economic Systems.Westport: Praeger Publisher, 2002.李明，《英汉互动翻译教程》，武汉：武汉大学出版社，2009年。王佐良，《文学间的契合》，北京：外语教学与研究出版社，2005年。文军，《翻译实用手册》，北京：外语教学与研究出版社，2010。杨忠，《语言学概论》，北京：高等教育出版社，2002年。张春柏，《英汉汉英翻译教程》，北京：高等教育出版社，2003年。