英语公示翻译技巧

Introduction

International communication is becoming popular now. China, with the rapid development of economy and society, has maintained increasingly close ties with other countries around the world. In recent years, more and more people come to Chengde City to have a visit or study. Chengde is famous for the Summer Mountain Resorts. There are all kinds of public signs in the Summer Mountain Resorts. It brings convenience to the visitors and improves the culture taste of the city. However, there are also many errors of public signs, including: lexical errors, spelling errors, grammar errors, unclear description, cultural confusion and Chinglish. In this situation, the paper will try to give a theoretical and practical analysis of C-E translation of public signs from the perspective of functionalist translation. The paper offers some suggestions for the public signs translation by utilizing the three principles of skopos theory and analyzing many examples. “The end justified the means”means that the translation strategies and methods are determined by acceptability and effectiveness of translation.

Public signs translation has great significance to both our country and the foreigners. English translations of Chinese public signs belong to publicity materials. Proper translations not only bring precise information to foreigners but also help build a good communication and good understanding. So the research on the translation of public signs is very important.

Chapter One A Brief Introduction of Public signs

Before an exploration of translation public signs, some information about public signs needs to be provided. This chapter will introduce the definition, function, classification of public signs and the language style of public signs.

1.1 The definition of public signs

As we known the public signs is a logo shown to some groups of people in particular place in order to have the function of communication. Public signs have become an academic term since 2000. “Si gn are anything from the simplest way finding or information maker to the technically sophisticated communication of a message”（Wang & Lv, 2007: 4）. “Signing affects everybody---travelers, shoppers, visitors, and drivers etc. whether in the course of business or pleasure”（Cheng，2000：104）.

Basic literal information that are publicly shown to the public, tourists, oversea guest, foreigners in China and the Chinese in other countries to satisfy their behavior and needs in food, dwelling, travel and entertainment, are all within the category of signs (Lv, 2005:22).

Some websites also pay close attention to public signs translation, such as, “https://www.360docs.net/doc/5f9496549.html,”, “https://www.360docs.net/doc/5f9496549.html,”and “https://www.360docs.net/doc/5f9496549.html,”. “https://www.360docs.net/doc/5f9496549.html,”provides the following definition: “literal information for public in public places”.

According to the definition above, public signs have the following features: First they convey warning, instructional, restrictive, prohibitive or advocating information. Second, they are expressed in literal. Third they are not aimed at individuals but groups of people.

1.2 The function of public signs

Public signs are widely used in daily life, such as airport, ticket office, high way, gas station, subway, taxi, museums, docks, emergency, school, tourist site, park, restaurant, street, cinema, etc.

They are greatly informative. They can give us great help and facility. All the signs have four principal functions in application: directing, prompting, restricting, compelling effects.

Directing signs convey the information to the public, without any restricting or compelling indication. It does not require the public to take actions, but give them an instruction or direction. For example: At the sight of “Information”（问询中心）people will know they can ask some questions and get answers. From “P et Hotel”（宠物旅馆）people will know their pets can be taken care in this place.

Prompting signs are widely used although they do not have any special meaning. They just have prompting functions. For example, “S old Out”（售完）“P reserved”（预留席位）“B eware of Dog”（当心犬只）“F ull Booked”（客满）“M aximum Height”（限高）, etc.

Restricting signs order the audience to restrict the behavior. The language used is straightforward but not rude. For example, “E mergency Passage Way, Please Not Hand Luggage on the Floor” （紧急通道，请勿将手提物品搁置地上）,“Give Way”（让路）,“Ticket Only”（凭票进场）,etc.

Compelling signs ask the public to take some actions or not, otherwise they would be punished. For example, “Police Line Do Not Pass”（警戒线，勿超越）“Don?t Walk”（禁止通行）, “No Smoking”（禁止吸烟）,“No Overnight Parking”（严禁过夜停车）.

From the discussion above, we know the function of public signs. This is one of the ways of dividing the functions of public signs. We can also divide the functions into directing, reminding and ordering.

1.3 The classification of public signs

Generally speaking, we have different ways to classify public signs

according to different criteria.

1.3.1 Informative and evocative

Public signs can be divided into “informative” (content focused) and “evocative” (appeal focused). Informative public signs provide information or describe a situation. The readers do not need to take some actions. They are widely used in scenic spots, such as, facilities, the name of the park, introduction, etc.

Evocative public signs are designed to present information with a particular perspective. According to Nord, “…evocative?is called …appellative?”:the use of language to make the receivers do something corresponding (Nord, 2006:40). e.g. “No Fishing Here, 禁止垂钓”“Wet Floor, 小心地滑”and “Free for Children under 12, 十二岁以下儿童免费”.

1.3.2 Slogans and advertisements

Public signs include “slogans” and “advertisements” according to the purpose of usage.

Slogans are used for publicity. For example, create a new situation, modernize in all fields （全面开创社会主义现代化建设新局面）. The later is shown in written form outside. For example, “we care to provide service above and beyond the call of duty”（殷勤有加，风雨不改，UPS联合快递公司）.

1.3.3 Public signs in scenic spots and other places

According to the place where the public signs appear we can classify the public signs as the following:

Public signs in scenic spots: signs in the scenic spots are designed to give the travelers some help or instruction. e.g.: Please Protect Facilities（保护公共设施, State Protect Historic Site（国家级文物保护单位）.

There are also some traffic signs and road signs, for example, Xin Hua Road（新华路）, No Parking（禁止停车）.

All above are the classifications of public signs.

1.4 The language style of public signs

All the public signs have special features because they are mainly used in public places and their functions are communicative. Understanding the language style of public signs is very important. The main language features of public signs are conciseness and directness.

1.4.1 Conciseness

Public signs must be short and they must express the meaning clearly with right structures because the functions of public signs are to arouse readers? attention, and then, they can give readers warning or notice. Besides, they are usually written on the billboards or posters, which have limited writing space. Wordy public signs can?t convey the effective information to the readers but make the readers confused. For example, “H and Off, 请勿触摸”, which means “please don?t touch the exhibits”, “C losed during Repairs,停业整顿” which means “the store is being repaired, suspensions of business”

1.4.2 Directness

To be direct means the public signs should be expressed directly. Public signs should be written in the simple words so that everybody can understand it. Obscure terms should be avoided in signs. For example, Staff Only, which means if you are not the staff, please doesn?t enter.

Chapter Two Problems of C-E Public Signs Translations in

Summer Mountain Resorts

Now we know the important function and situation of public signs for people but the translation errors still exist in public signs, even in the Summer Mountain Resorts. It is unfortunate that there are a lot of problems such as lexical errors, spelling errors, grammar errors, literal translation, and cultural differences, against convention and so on. All of that have harmful effect on the society.

2.1 Lexical errors

Errors coming from lexical mistranslation account for the biggest percentage of the total linguistic errors according to the relevant statistic material. This phenomenon exists because the translators only know the vocabulary of formal equivalence, and ignore vocabulary dynamic equivalence. A word is the smallest unit of language. Translators should use the proper words in translation on the basis of accurate comprehension of the original. So the translators should make sure to understand the correct comprehension of each word in is source text, and express the correct expression in target language. How to choose a proper word is the key step.

Example (1): there is a big public signs in the gate of the Summer Mountain Resorts: “W ay Out”, which refers to the place from which you can go out of a building in British English and in the scenic spots we should use “E xit” instead.

Example (2): “请在此排队Join the Main Line”. It should write “Please Queue”.

Example (3): “请注意安全Please Pay Attention to Safety”. It should write “Caution: Risk of Danger”.

2.2 Spelling errors

Spelling errors are apparent and easy to be avoided. In the Summer Mountain Resorts we find out lots of spelling errors. For example, “芳园居fragrant Garden”. I t should be capitalized. “观莲所Lotus view PA VILION”, the word on the board are confused. They should be written in uniform format. Spelling errors also include the misuse of Chinese pinyin. Pinyin is often mixed with English in nonstandard ways. Like “西岭晨霞Xilingchenxia Chamber”. The foreigners can?t understand its meaning. “云帆月航a tower in the shape of boat , the …seneryis? a boat-shaped chamber with two floors.” “S ceneryis” should be written as“scenery is”.

2.3 Grammar errors

Chinese and English have two different grammar rules and grammar errors are likely to happen because of the differences. Grammar errors refer to the system of inflection, syntax and word formation of a language. For example:

“It was built in 1703, was over the palace area before 1771, after the formal palace had been completed, the island becomes a major scenic attraction in the landscape area.”

“如意洲建于1703年，1771年之前竣工，在正宫完成之后，如意洲成为景区的主要景点。”

There are multiple predicate in this sentence. The right translation is:

“It was built in 1703 and finished before1771. It becomes a major scenic spot after the formal palace had been finished in the landscape area.”

“It is 14 sight of Qianglong?s 36 sights”.“观莲所为乾隆三十六景第十四景”.Here they should use ordinal numbers. The correct translation is “it is 14th sight of Qianglong?s 36 sights.”

2.4 Unclear description

There is a special phenomenon in Summer Mountain Resorts. Y ou can see the detailed and vivid Chinese description and brief and unclear English in

the public signs. The English and the Chinese are not correspondent with each other. For example, “万壑松风，Pins Soughing V alleys”. The board says “it is sixth sights of Kangxi?s 36 sights, built in 1708. Emperor Qianglong ever studied here when he was young.” But the Chinese also says“康熙谈论政治大事时必要乾隆旁听在此，以示培养”. The translators omitted this part. The foreigners can?t understand what the meaning of “Pins Soughing V alleys” is. And “月色江声Moonlight Rumbling Water” is confusing. Most of the translations can?t be understood. It should be explained in the public signs.

2.5 Cultural confusion

Cultural translation errors are related to the question of whether conventions should be adapted to target-culture standards. Public signs translation is also regarded as a kind of cultural communication and exchange. In C-E public signs translation, errors caused by a translator?s deficiency of cultural background knowledge are account for a certain percentage among all the errors. A translator should by no means ignore the influence of cultural background knowledge. The mistranslation will not convey the false information to the foreigners. So we must pay much attention to the cultural differences. Please look at the following:

“金山，仿镇江金山而建，亭台殿阁以长廊相连为主体，帝阁为当年帝王祭祀真武大帝和玉皇大帝的地方。”

“It was built in 1703; imitate the Golden Hill of Zhenjiang city. The pavilions here linked with corridors, oblate Zhenwu God and Jade Emperor.”It is too difficult to the foreigners to understand what “Zhenwu god” is.

Therefore, the translators should learn about the cultural background before translating in order to overcome the cultural barriers.

2.6 Chinglish

Chinese usually use English without English grammar rules. Some translators can?t express the public signs in native English. The way of thinking and expressing which can be embodied in the way of choosing the

proper words, phrases and ways of collocation are strongly influenced by Chinese. Some people call it Chinglish. It was caused by different thinking patterns. Chinese translators must be influenced by their mother tongue and produce Chinglish expression. As a translator, he or she should try to avoid such mistakes, e.g.

“小草有生命，脚下请留情”means to remind people to keep off the grass. However, It was translated literally as “Little grass has life, please watch your s tep.” The suggested translation is “Treading on Grass is treading on Life” or “Please Keep off the Grass”. “万树园 ,Ten-Thousand Tree Garden”. It mak es the foreigner confused whether there are ten thousand trees.

Chapter Three Functional Skopos Theory

Public signs belong to practical text. The purpose of C-E translation of public signs is to ensure the target readers understand what the public convey. Functional approach emerged in 1970s in Germany and became wide-spread in 1980s. The skopos theory is an important theory in functional approaches.

The skopos theory believed that the purpose of one translation task determines the translation method, namely, literal translation, free translation or the combination of both. Translations must obey the following rules:

3.1 The skopos rule

It is the major rule of the skopos theory. V ermeer explains the skopos rule in the following way:

Each text is produced for a given purpose and should serve this purpose. The skopos rules thus reads as follow: translate/interpret/speak /write in a way that enables your text/translation to function in the situation in which it is used and with the peop le who want to use it and precisely in the way they want it to function (V ermeer, 1989:20) .

This rule is intended to solve the eternal dilemmas of free vs. faithful translation, dynamic vs. formal equivalence, good interpreters vs. slavish translators, a nd so on. Whether a particular translation task need a “free” or a “faithful” translation, or anything between these two extremes depending on the purpose what the translation needs.

3. 2 Coherence rule

Another important rule of skopo s the “coherence rule” specifies that the target text must be interpretable as coherent with the t arget text receiver?s situation (Reiss & V ermeer, 1984:113).

It should make the sense in the communicative situation and culture in which it is received. A communicative interaction can only be regarded as successful if the receivers interpret it as being sufficiently coherent with their situation. “Being …coherent with? is synonymous with being …part of? the receiver?s situation” (Vermeer, 1987:54). In other words, the target language must be translated in such a way that it is coherent for the target text receivers. For example:

“芳储临流，亭三面临水，一面居山，夏季潺潺的湖水翠绿的山光，波泛涟漪的湖泊及百鸟齐飞的壮景，构成了一副奇妙的画面。”

The translation in English is “In summer here the clear water and green hills together with lot s of birds form a piece of beautiful picture.”

The adverbials of time are usually written at the end and the adverbials of place are usually put in front of the adverbials of time. If the adverbials of time are written at the beginning of the sentence, it should be separated from the sentence with a comma. The right sentence is “In summer, the clear water and green hills together with lots of birds form a piece of beautiful picture here.” Or “The clear water and green hills together with lots of birds f orm a piece of beautiful picture in summer here”

3.3 Fidelity rule

It means that there should be inter-textual coherence between the source and target texts. V ermeer calls this relationship “intertextual coherence”or “fidelity”. It is very important in the translation.

For example:

“月色江声，建于康熙四十三年，占地5280平方米，岛上一组四进院落，门前有康熙题额‘月色江声’。其意境取苏东坡《前赤壁赋》‘月出于东山之上，徘徊于斗牛之间，白露横江，水光接天’。主殿‘寂静山房’是康熙读书之所。其后‘莹心堂’为清帝书斋。堂后湖墨画外有‘鱼矶石’是皇帝垂钓的地方，西面有‘冷香亭’。”

“This sight is a complex of courtyard. Emperor Kangxi wrote its name as …Moon and Lake Garden? on the ho rizontal inscribed board hanged on its gate

way”.

This public signs of English is different from Chinese one entirely. The foreigners can?t understand why this place is called “Moon and Lake Garden”. And they can?t enjoy the cultural background of this place.

Chapter Four Translation Methods on Public Signs

This section will give a basic introduction to solve the above mentioned problems of mistranslations according to the rules of skopos theory. The paper introduces five methods in this chapter based on the rules of skopos theory as following:

4.1 Borrowing

As the application of the public signs is global, we can find out the corresponding conventional public signs except the one with the national characteristics. According to the skopos rule, the translators should consider the receivers, including their cultural background and language habits. Lots of public signs which are used abroad can be borrowed directly, such as “请不要乱丢果皮纸屑, Please Don?t Abandon Peel And Paper” . In the conventional way, we can say “N o Littering, 请勿触摸”.If it is translated as “D on?t Touch”, the English version will be rude even though there are no grammatical mistakes. The proper expression should b e “H and Off”.

4. 2 Restructing

According to the coherence rule, the translators should make sure that the target-text readers are able to understand the target text. The translations are coherent with their own communicative situation and culture. So the translators can use the restructing method.

The English and Chinese languages belong to different language families, so there are lots of differences between them. One of the most different aspects is the sentence structure. English is the hypotactic language while the Chinese is the paratatic language. According to the skopos, the translators should pay more attention to the receivers, including their language habit. For example:

“冷香亭为乾隆三十六景第十二景，亭前湖中遍植从敖汉移来的荷花，深秋不凋。”

“It is the 12th sight of Qianlong?s 36 sights. Many lotuses are gowned in the front of the lake in which bloom till deep autumn.”

In this sentence, the translators have adjusted the structure.

“保护环境，从我做起。” There are three kinds of translations. (1)Keep Our Street Clean. (2)I Take Y our Trash. (3)Thank Y ou for Y our Littering.

The public signs of Chinese is made of two Chinese expressions, but it is a simply sentence in English. The translations of English are correspondent to the thoughts of foreigners and the way of their expression.

4. 3 Imitating

Based on the skopos rules, the purpose of public signs is giving the visitors some information. The translation of public signs should be able to understand by the receivers. It is a better way to imitate the examples which have been used widely and accepted by the foreigners.

Please look at the following:

“Danger, Explosives. 危险, 易爆品.”We can imitate this one “D anger, Deep Water 危险，水深.”It is better than “Please Don?t Play with Water”.“C aution: Hot!” It is Standard English. If we want to warm the tr aveler pay more attention to the falling rocks from the hill we can say “C aution: Falling Rocks”.

4.4 Cultural transformation

According to the coherence rule, what the translator can do, and should do, is to produce a text that is at least likely to be meaningful to target-culture receivers. The successful translations should be corresponded with the target-text cultural background. Then the receivers can accept them. It is easy to overcome the language barriers but it is difficult to overcome the cultural barriers. Please look as the following:

“Tourism, please stop here”. Some foreigners don?t move when they see

this public signs. It should be “S taff only”.

“Banruo Temple, another name is Falin Temple. There is a principle hall with three rooms. The statue of Wulingshoufo and the statue of Jiudufomu are enshrined in it.”

“般若寺又名法林寺，寺内主殿三间。供奉着无量寿佛和救度佛母。”

Some public signs of Chinese characteristics should be make a further explanation. The translators should make the visitors understand that “Wulingshoufo and Jiudufomu” are equivalent to the god.

4.5 Notation

According to the Skopos rule and Fidelity rule, a good translation should be understood by the receivers. And it should be loyal to the source-target-text. So many public signs in the Summer Mountain Resorts are written in Chinese pinyin. The translators can make notes for the public signs which have Chinese characteristics. Please look at the following:

“Qinghui Pavilion 清晖亭”

Notes: It is a place where people resting in the pavilion can feel cozy in early morning.

“Enjoying Lotus-Flowers 观莲所”

Notes: It is a place where Emporor Qianglong used to enjoy lotus here.

“W aterside Hall of Enjoying Lotus 香远溢清”

Notes: Lotuses are gorgeous after raining in the pond.

Conclusion

This chapter is the conclusion of this paper. It first makes a summary of the research. The paper approaches C-E translation of public signs from the perspective of functionalist translation theory. It starts with an introduction to the definition, the functions, the classifications and the language styles of public signs. Generally speaking, it has four functions, including: directing, prompting, restricting and compelling. Its language styles are: directness and conciseness. Then, the paper introduces and analyzes the translation errors in the Summer Mountain Resort. It introduces three rules of skopos theory which serves as the theoretical basic of the research in this paper. This paper attempts to apply functionalist theory to C-E translation of public signs. It tried to offer some translation methods under the guide of the rules of skopos theory, such as borrowing, restructing, imitating, cultural transformation and notation.

This paper is significant in both theoretical and practical aspects. Theoretically, it proves that it is feasible to apply skopos theory to C-E translation of public signs. Practically, it puts forward some translation methods to improve the English language environment in China.

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