目的语境下的旅游手册的翻译

分类号UDC 学号硕士学位论文论文题目：目的论指导下的旅游手册英译研究论文作者：李天云指 导 教 师 姓 名、范定洪副教授重庆大学职称、工作单位：申请学位级别：硕士专业名称：外国语言学及应用语言学论文提交日期：年月日答辩日期：年月日学位授予单位：重庆大学授位日期：年月日答辩委员会主席：论文评阅人：年月日重庆大学硕士学位论文目的论指导下的旅游手册英译研究硕士研究生：李天云指导教师：范定洪副教授学科、专业：外国语言学及应用语言学重庆大学外国语学院二OO七年十月M.A. Dissertation of Chongqing UniversityA Study on Chinese-English Translation of Tourist Brochures under the Guidance ofSkopostheorieM.A. Candidate: Li TianyunSupervisor: Associate Prof. Fan DinghongMajor: Linguistics and Applied LinguisticsCollege of Foreign LanguagesChongqing UniversityOctober 2007摘要旅游手册是旅游业用以吸引游客的重要营销工具之一。

中国对外旅游业的发展带动了旅游手册翻译的飞速发展，但很多旅游手册的英译不尽人意，有待完善，而完善旅游手册的英译需要理论指导。

目的论满足了二十世纪七十年代对非文学文本翻译的需求。

旅游手册属于非文学文本范畴，可以尝试用目的论指导旅游手册的英译。

因此，本文试图检验旅游手册英译的质量能否在目的论的指导下得到提高。

根据目的论, 目标文本的文本功能或翻译目的决定翻译过程；“目的语接受者对文本的接受情况决定文本功能，因此可以说目的语接受者对文本的接受情况决定翻译目的” (Nord,2005,p.17)。

诺德(2005)认为 “接受者对文本的反应发生在读者接受文本之后”(p.60)。

读者对文本的反应可以在一定程度上折射出读者对文本的接受情况。

笔者首先以重庆旅游手册为例从总体上分析翻译纲要和文本功能, 以揭示旅游手册英译的目的和功能, 总结不符合翻译目的和文本功能的旅游手册文本中常见的翻译失误,并在目的论指导下尝试重新翻译文本,给出拟译文。

其次笔者设计并实施一份问卷调查，通过读者对拟译文的反应,进一步检验用目的论指导旅游手册英译的可行性及目的论提高译文质量的有效性。

笔者发现旅游手册英译中的错误主要是语用翻译失误、文化翻译失误和语言翻译失误。

本文对这三种翻译失误加以细分。

每一种细分的翻译失误在问卷中至少有一个例句。

题为“读者对重庆旅游手册英译的反应”的问卷主要由13个例句及其两对译文组成：一个译文是旅游手册的原译文，另一个译文是目的论指导下的拟译文。

笔者收集了40份问卷，从外国读者的反应分析了拟译文的语内连贯；从中国读者的反应对其语际连贯进行了分析；进而检测拟译文是否符合目的法则。

分析表明大多数拟译文为外国游客和中国译者所接受, 即符合目的法则。

笔者最后得出结论,目的论为旅游手册的英译提供了很好的功能观和接受者视角，可以指导旅游手册的英译；考虑目的语接受者对译文的接受情况能够提高译文的质量；目的法则是衡量旅游手册英译好坏的最重要的标准之一。

关键词：目的论，旅游手册英译，问卷调查，目的法则ABSTRACTTourist brochures are one of the important tools used by tourism industry in the competition to attract tourists. With the booming of China’s international tourism, translation of tourist brochures has developed rapidly. However, most Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures is problematic and has plenty of room for improvement. Improving the translation quality needs a theoretical guidance. Skopostheorie was developed to meet the growing needs of translating non-literary text types in the 1970’s. Tourist brochure falls into this category and thus fits for a new try-out of Skopostheorie. Therefore, the thesis is attempted to check whether the Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures will be improved under the guidance of Skopostheorie.According to Skopostheorie, the prospective function or Skopos of the target text determines the translation process. Furthermore, “it is the reception that defines the function of the text, so it is safe to say that the reception of the target text defines the Skopos of the translation” (Nord, 2005, p. 17). According to Nord (2005), “receivers’ reaction or response to the text takes place after text reception” (p. 60). Therefore, receivers’ reaction or response to the text may shed a light on text reception in one way or another.The theoretical foundation inspires the author to study from two aspects. First, the author analyzed the commission and text functions on the whole with Chongqing tourist brochures as an example to present the Skopos and text functions of Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures, summarized the major translation errors in tourist brochures which failed to fulfill the Skopos and text functions and presented the proposed retranslations for each type of translation errors in light of Skopostheorie. Second, the author designed and administered a questionnaire to check the applicability of Skopostheorie to Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures and the effectiveness of improving the translation by investigating readers’ responses toward the retranslated versions.The author found that the main translation errors in Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures were pragmatic translation errors, cultural translation errors and linguistic translation errors. They were further discussed. Each sub-error of these three main translation errors had at least typical example in the questionnaire titled “The Readers’ Response to C-E Translation of Chongqing Tourist Brochure”. Thequestionnaire was mainly made up of 13 Chinese sentences and pairs of their translations: one was the original translation; the other was adapted under the guidance of Skopostheorie. 40 completed questionnaires were collected. The author analyzed the intratextual coherence and the intertextual coherence of the retranslations from foreign readers and Chinese readers respectively and checked whether those retranslations followed the Skopos rule. It showed that most retranslations were accepted by the readers and they were in accordance with the Skopos rule.It can be mainly drawn from the research that Skopostheorie offers functional and receiver-oriented perspectives for Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures and can be applied to guide Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures. In addition, the translation quality can be improved by taking text reception into consideration. Furthermore, it may suggest that the Skopos rule is one of the most important criteria in judging the quality of Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures.Key words:Skopostheorie, Chinese-English Translation of Tourist Brochures, Questionnaire, Skopos RuleTABLE OF CONTENTS摘要 (I)ABSTRACT (II)CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION (1)1.1 B ACKGROUND OF THE R ESEARCH (1)1.2 P URPOSE OF THE S TUDY (2)1.3 S IGNIFICANCE OF THE S TUDY (3)1.4 S TRUCTURE OF THE D ISSERTATION (3)CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW (5)2.1 O VERVIEW (5)2.2 R ELEV ANT S TUDIES OF T OURISM T RANSLATION A BROAD (5)2.2.1 Research from the Historical and Authentic Point of View (5)2.2.2 Research from the Sociolinguistic Perspective (5)2.3 R ELEV ANT S TUDIES OF T OURISM T RANSLATION AT H OME (6)2.3.1 Research from the Perspective of Function (6)2.3.2 Research from the Perspective of Linguistics (7)2.3.3 Research from the Perspective of Crosscultural Analysis (8)2.3.4 Research from the Perspective of Translation Strategies and Principles (8)2.3.5 Research from Other Perspectives (9)CHAPTER THREE SKOPOSTHEORIE AND TOURIST BROCHURE TRANSLATION (11)3.1 O VERVIEW (11)3.2 R ELEV ANT F UNCTIONALIST A PPROACHES (11)3.2.1 Katharina Reiss’s Text Type (11)3.2.2 Justa Holz-Manttari’s Theory of Translational Action (13)3.2.3 Christiane Nord’s Functional Hierarchy of Translation Problems (15)3.3 S KOPOSTHEORIE (16)3.3.1 Basic Terms of Skopostheorie (16)3.3.2 Basic Rules of Skopostheorie (17)3.3.3 Skopos and Commission (18)3.3.4 Skopos and Receivers (19)3.4T OURIST B ROCHURE T RANSLATION IN LIGHT OF S KOPOSTHEORIE (20)3.4.1 Commission for Chinese-English Translation of Tourist (20)Brochures (20)3.4.2 Specific Functions of Tourist Brochures (22)3.4.3 Tackling Typical Translation Errors (25)CHAPTER FOUR QUESTIONNAIRE (27)4.1 O VERVIEW (27)4.2 J USTIFICATION OF T HIS S URVEY (27)4.3 S UBJECTS (27)4.4 D ESCRIPTION OF THE Q UESTIONNAIRE (28)4.4.1 Description of the Structure (28)4.4.2 Description of the Content and Sources (29)4.5 D EVELOPMENT OF THE Q UESTIONNAIRE (30)4.6 T HE P ILOT S TUDY (30)4.7 P ROCEDURES FOR D ATA C OLLECTION AND D ATA A NALYSIS (30)CHAPTER FIVE RESULTS AND DISCUSSION (32)5.1 O VERVIEW (32)5.2 R ESULTS (32)5.2.1 Result for Research Question 1 (32)5.2.2 Result for Research Question 2 (34)5.3 D ISCUSSION (34)5.3.1 Standard for Discussion (34)5.3.2 Discussion for Research Question 1 (34)5.3.3 Discussion for Research Question 2 (48)CHAPTER SIX CONCLUSION (50)6.1 O VERVIEW (50)6.2 M AJOR F INDINGS (50)6.3 I MPLICATIONS (51)6.4 L IMITATIONS AND R ECOMMENDATIONS FOR F URTHER R ESEARCH (52)REFERENCES (55)APPENDIX (58)Chapter One Introduction1.1 Background of the ResearchNowadays, more and more people get to realize the importance of traveling instead of staying at home all their lives without attempting to see other places, contact other peoples and experience other cultures. The development of global economy and the improvement of people’s living standard make tourism play an increasingly important role in people’s life. China’s further development of reform and opening up has brought about more and more international cultural and economic exchanges. Foreign visitors, businessmen and overseas Chinese have been coming to visit China. The World Tourism Organization estimates that “China will be the first tourism destination in the world and the fourth-largest tourist nation by 2020” (Xiong, 2005, p.21).The importance of tourism in national and regional development has caused increasing competition in efforts to attract tourists. Tourism destination marketing has become a major player in this competition process. Tourist brochure is an important tool that has been widely used by the tourism industry to market tourism products and services, including destinations.“A tourist brochure is a form of printed promotional material designed to communicate with existing or potential tourists. And today this is one of the most commonly used vehicles” (Molina & Esteban, 2006, p.1041). The most important source of information for tourists planning overseas package tours is the tourist brochure which is one of the most important and widely utilized among a variety of promotional methods available. And the supplier with the best brochure is likely to receive the business because potential tourists rely on tourist brochures to make their holiday choices. For many vacation decision makers, tourist brochure is an appealing information source which offers information about one scenic spot to help tourists understand the place better (Wang, Hsieh & Chen, 2002).Tourist brochures have become increasingly important in recent years. With the development of tourism, more and more foreigners are coming to travel in China. Therefore, it is high time we paid attention to tourist brochures and their Chinese-English translation.However, the fact is that many Chinese-English translated texts in tourist brochures are poorly conducted，which may result in misunderstanding and confusion among theirnative and non-native English readers. To make us aware of errors in tourism translation, Wen, Deng, Gu and Jiang (2002) carried out a survey on tourism translation among foreigners on the basis of the common problems in the recent tourist translation. Through the data analysis, they found eight types of translation errors: misspelling, unjustified omission, grammatical mistake, awkward expression, Chinglish, poor word selection, unnecessary repetition, and cultural mistranslation (Wen, Deng, Gu & Jiang, 2002).These errors may hinder the comprehension of overseas tourists or potential tourists and may leave them a negative impression before, during or after their traveling in China, leading to possible communication breakdown. In the long run, it may be the stumbling-block of China’s tourism development.These errors are a wake-up call for us to study the Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures. In addition, there have been few researches on Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures within a sound theoretical framework. Although people have adopted many theories and made some achievements in the translation of tourist texts, the overall translation is far from being satisfactory.Skopostheorie was developed to meet the growing needs of translating non-literary text types in the 1970’s and the tourist brochure falls into this category. Undoubtedly, Skopostheorie is justified for guiding the Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures. The author attempts to apply Skopostheorie to analyzing typical translation errors in the Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures, hoping that the thesis could help to optimize the Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures and that this thesis would be a successful trial of the theory.1.2 Purpose of the StudyBased on the preceding discussion, the study aims to find out whether Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures will be improved under the guidance of Skopostheorie. Two specific research questions are developed to guide this thesis: Research question 1: What are tourists’ responses to samples of translation errors in Chongqing tourist brochures and to the retranslated versions adapted in accordance with Skopostheorie?Research question 2: Do those retranslated versions enjoy the intratextual coherence, intertextual coherence and are they in line with the Skopos rule?An analytical and empirical approach will be adopted in this thesis. First, theauthor analyzes the commission and text functions on the whole with Chongqing tourist brochures as an example, summarizes the major translation errors in the translated tourist brochures which failed to fulfill the Skopos and text functions and presents the proposed retranslations for each sample of translation errors in light of Skopostheorie. Second, the author designs and administers a questionnaire to check the applicability of Skopostheorie to Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures and the effectiveness of improving the translation quality.1.3 Significance of the StudyThere are four aspects to the significance of the present research.First, the receiver orientation the author highlights is the fresh blood to current researches into tourism translation.Second, a thorough analysis of commission and specific functions for Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures will make translators realize the importance of commission before translating begins.Third, the classification and analysis of translation errors will present translators with a clearer understanding of problems existing in real translation and raise their awareness of those translation errors.Fourth, the study is a break away from traditional researches in which empirical approach is barely used. The empirical analysis adopted in this thesis enriches Skopostheorie and the new trial of the theory is attempted to optimize the Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures.1.4 Structure of the DissertationThe present dissertation is composed of the following chapters:Chapter 1 states the current situation of tourism in the world, research background, research purpose, research significance and the overall structure of the thesis.Chapter 2 reviews relevant studies on tourism translation carried out by experts and scholars at home and abroad, from perspectives of function, text-typology, linguistics, cross-cultural analysis, translation strategies and principles, psychology and empirical analysis, with the author's comment and assessment enclosed respectively.Chapter 3 establishes the theoretical framework for the Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures: Hans J. Vermeer's Skopostheorie and related Functional approaches. Besides, this chapter throws a light on the application of Skopostheorie toChinese-English translation of tourist brochures with two Chongqing tourist brochures as an example. It mainly analyzes the commission, text functions of Chongqing tourist brochures and major translation errors in Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures.Chapter 4 designs the questionnaire. It briefly introduces justification of the survey, information about subjects, structure, content and sources of the questionnaire, development of the questionnaire, and data collection and analysis.Chapter 5 consists of two parts: results and discussion. It focuses on the practical analysis of Chinese-English translation of Chongqing tourist brochures in light of Skopostheorie. It serves as further theoretical study of Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures within the framework of Skopostheorie, in which typical translation errors in Chinese-English translation of tourist brochures are analyzed in detail.Chapter 6 is the conclusion of this thesis, with limitations and prospect of the research included.Chapter Two Literature Review2.1 OverviewTranslation of tourist brochures is comparatively a new topic which is always included in the translation of tourism literature. In addition, scant study has been conducted in the translation of tourist brochures. This chapter will mainly cover relevant studies of tourism literature translation at home and abroad respectively from various perspectives.2.2 Relevant Studies of Tourism Translation Abroad2.2.1 Research from the Historical and Authentic Point of ViewAndre (2006) argues that travel and travel narratives are important markers of authentic knowledge of non-European lands including China. Besides, he also contends that the first generation of Sino-English translators and their reviewers stress this personal knowledge of China, while belittling foreign ‘book learning’ of China.To expand his argument, he first introduces the pre-sinological knowledge of China. Andre (2006) thinks that epistemological, economic, political, and literary factors lead to “the privileging of British travel, the recording of first hand observations” (p. 194). The observation, as he holds, is the major way to authenticate one’s knowledge of China in eighteenth and early nineteenth century.He then talks about the strategies for establishing authentic British translations. Andre (2006) uses series of example to demonstrate that “British translators were cognizant of the ‘cultural capital’ of travel in establishing one’s credentials and authenticating one’s work”(p. 198).In the next part, he maintains that the reception of works translated by British translators from the Chinese was quite positive between 1810 and 1830 and translations were useful to fill gaps in British knowledge, but when they were in conflict with travel accounts, they were ignored.In the conclusion part, Andre highlights that the British traveled toward true translations, but the truth contained in those translations remains secondary to other British truths about China.2.2.2 Research from the Sociolinguistic PerspectiveIn the book of the Language of Tourism: A Sociolinguistic Perspective by Dann(1996), it is shown that tourism has a discourse of its own in the act of promotion and in the accounts of its practitioners and clients. Meanwhile, we should note that tourists often can and do feed back into this discourse. The language of tourism, however, is more than a metaphor. Through pictures, brochures and other media, the language of tourism is attempted to seduce millions of people into becoming tourists and subsequently to control their attitudes and behaviors. Tourists, in turn, contribute further to this language through the communication of their experiences. This book provides the first sociolinguistic treatment of tourism. It draws on semiotic analyses of tourism and borrows from the content of promotional material produced by the tourism industry. The author of the book writes in a way that is rigorous but accessible. The book is of interest to all scholars studying tourism from a social perspective and it has important implications for tourism marketing and for professionals in the tourism industry.Chapter 1 gives a glimpse of the whole book. Chapter 2 shows that among tourism researchers and academics there has been a growing awareness of the sociolinguistic nature of tourism. Chapter 3 continues the discussion by identifying the properties of the language of tourism. Chapter 4 is dedicated to a separate in-depth treatment of one of the major tourism language characteristics: the realization of the fact that it is a language of social control. Chapter 5 outlines the principal manner in which such control is exercised in a context of apparent freedom. Chapter 6 turns to the medium of tourism language. Chapter 7 throws light on the language of tourism by examining the techniques it employs and Chapter 8 looks at registers in the language of tourism.What makes the language of tourism so fascinating is that, like tourism itself, it thrives on the act of discovery. Just as travel is a pre-requisite or co-requisite to exploration, so too is a sociolinguistic journey required in order to uncover and reveal the language of tourism.2.3 Relevant Studies of Tourism Translation at Home2.3.1 Research from the Perspective of FunctionIn his book Tourism Translation and Guide-interpreting Chen (2004) proposes six features of tourism translation and guide-interpreting, namely, interesting, theoretic, practical, comprehensive, unique and operative. Chen highlights the importance of theory in tourism translation and supports Skopostheorie. After analyzing some important rules of this theory and text functions, he holds that Skopostheorie is helpful to explain why there are different versions of the same original texts and it presents amore objective standard for judging translated texts.After summarizing the functional approaches to translation in Germany, Lu (2006) investigates the translation brief for the translation of tourism texts of scenic spots in three aspects: intended functions, target addressees and mediums. He then analyzes some translation errors in English versions of Chinese tourism texts functionally and pragmatically. The paper also argues that the root causes of these translation errors lie in the translator’s lack of translation purposes.Kang ( 2005) starts by comparing functions of Chinese tourism texts and those of English tourism texts and then holds that translating Chinese tourism texts into English should be based on three reader-oriented principles: striving to achieve adequate equivalence with the source text as far as the directive function is concerned, making proper adjustments to the informational function of the source text to better satisfy the target language readers’ needs and adapting the descriptive function of the source text to the target language readers’ aesthetic norms. Kang argues that discussing tourism texts in Chinese and in English comparatively foregrounds three functions: the directive, the descriptive and the informational function. The first function is of essential importance to tourism texts. The other two functions merely play auxiliary, add-on roles, and their definition varies between the two languages.2.3.2 Research from the Perspective of LinguisticsSu (2006) considers the cultural translation of tourism texts as the most difficult part. She borrows cognitive blood to analyze the cultural elements of tourism texts such as admission tickets, guide maps, post cards and other introductive texts. She concludes that we should give priority to communicating culture and she analyzes the culture connotations by considering the tour in the park as a whole from the cognitive point of view.Lu and Jin (2000)'s co-authored book A Practical Writing Course for the Tourist Guide is the teaching material for students majoring in tourism and also the research material for scholars of tourism translation. It is mainly concerned with the tour guide’s commentaries, which sheds a light on tourism translation as a whole. Lu and Jin first introduce the language differences between Chinese and English, and then list the main points for writing tour guide’s commentaries. In the last part, they analyze 16 tourism texts which are valuable sources for students and researchers.Ye (2005) borrows theories from pragmatic equivalent effect, relevance theory and pragmatic strategies to analyze the translation of the scenic spots names, guide’scommentaries, tourism slogans and public signs. Ye holds that the translator must be faithful to the features of the scenic spots and the cultural connotations and at the same time be sure of the acceptability of the translated texts to western visitors.2.3.3 Research from the Perspective of Crosscultural AnalysisTraveling is a cross-cultural activity. Translation of texts at scenic spots can be dealt with from a cross-cultural perspective. Wang (2006) explores this issue from the following aspects: different linguistic and stylistic characteristics of tourist texts between English and Chinese, translation of scenic spots names and personal names, translation of historical and cultural terms and translation of Chinese poetry in tourist texts.Considering tourism translation as the crosscultural communication, Chen (2004) combines guide and interpreting together to show readers how to approach the tourism translation from different perspectives. The major principles for the Chinese-English translation of guides' commentaries are: to be tourist-oriented and to aim at promoting Chinese culture. He argues that translators must be equipped with crosscultural consciousness verbally and nonverbally. Cross-cultural consciousness, therefore, is a must for the translator who should always be tourist-oriented and be as ready as tour guides in promoting Chinese culture.Jia (2003) holds that Chinese and English tourism texts reflect different cultural, psychological and aesthetic habits. On this basis, he proceeds from the perspective of tourism aesthetics to analyze problems existing in Chinese-English translation of tourism texts. He argues that the translation problems listed by Wen Jun and other scholars result from the cultural differences and the differences in aesthetic habits. He thus argues that the translators need to master differences of aesthetic habits between Chinese and English speaking people.2.3.4 Research from the Perspective of Translation Strategies andPrinciplesChen (2004) holds that when choosing translation strategies, translators should be guided by the top-down method. He summarizes many strategies and skills for translating and interpreting the tourism texts, for example, adaptation/domestication, alienation/foreignization, amplification, conversion, diction, division, inversion, loan translation, negation, omission, paraphrase, repetition, restructuring, shift of perspective, simplification, specification and substitution.Zeng (2005) puts forward the theme-relevant information (information relevant tothe features of the attraction) and applies it to the translation of tourism texts. Given the demands of tourists and characteristics of Chinese tourism materials and other factors, two translation principles are proposed: first, rendering the theme-relevant information as precise and intact as possible while the quantity of other information must be properly controlled to prevent obliteration of the theme; second, complying with information arrangement of the English language as well as the language style of English tourism materials. Discussions are conducted from the following aspects: reconstruction and translation at the text level, and translation of cultural, descriptive and evaluative and ideological information.2.3.5 Research from Other PerspectivesGuo (2003) discusses the translation of tourism literature from the perspective of text-typology. In the paper Text Typology Theory and English Translation of Tourism Materials, Guo employs the text typology on the basis of functions of language. Guo argues that the translator is required to aim at fulfilling the communication of the vocative and informative function of tourism materials with a list of translation techniques enclosed.Pan (2006) discusses tourism translation from the perspective of psychology. After briefly introducing the importance of tourist publicity, Pan compares the differences between Chinese and English publicity materials on scenic spots. He borrows the Gestalt theory from psychology. Accordingly, he discusses the Gestalt law of closure, the Gestalt law of figure-ground, the Gestalt law of simplicity and the Gestalt law of continuity respectively, and then applies them to analyze the Chinese-English translation of publicity materials on scenic spots. It is of great significance to tourism translation.From the perspective of empirical analysis, Wen et al. (2002), on the basis of the common problems in the present tourist translation, investigate the responses and attitudes of foreign tourists from different countries. Then, through the data analysis, the various problems of the present tourism translation are shown out; the tourists’ psychological acceptable degree is studied; and some valuable suggestions are put forward to improve the tourist translation.Gao and Zhang (2005) borrow the research method from Wen Jun and approach problems of translating tourism texts from the perspective of relevance. They do reveal the translation problems and give some general principles without providing suggested translation versions.。