论文总字数：27555字

摘 要

本文以功能对等理论和错误分析理论为基础，通过定性与定量研究方法，对收集到的100条不正确的公示语进行分析，结果表明这些问题存在于词汇、语法和文化等各方面，极大地影响了交际的有效性。研究结果还表明，语内错误、语际错误和文化差异是产生这些翻译错误的主要原因。在错误案列分析的基础上，本文也提出了对应的公示语翻译策略。

关键词: 公示语; 翻译错误; 功能对等

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

2.1 Definition of Public Signs 2

2.2 Characteristics of Public Signs 3

2.3 Relevant Translation Theories 6

2.4 Early Researches 7

3. Errors in C-E Translation of Public Signs 7

3.1 Results of the Statistics 8

3.2 Data Analysis 8

3.3 Error Diagnosis 11

4. Strategies for Translation of Public Signs 12

4.1 Imitation, Reference and Innovation 12

4.2 Methods Determined by Purposes 13

4.3 Style Coming after Meaning 13

5. Conclusion 13

Works Cited 15

1. Introduction

“Public signs” refers to the writings displayed in public areas, which have the function of offering information and making directions. Generally speaking, road signs, guidebooks, product instructions, advertisements are all public signs. English public signs are very convenient signposts and information carriers in international cities, which are brief, official and normative.

However, many problems, such as improper translation, wrong translation, are frequently seen in the translation of public signs. These problems, to a certain extend, are not only causing trouble about the daily life of foreigners in China, but also damaging the original functions of the public signs, and further more damaging the image of the city. When foreign tourists come to China and see the inappropriate translation or even wrong translation of public signs as: “A TIME SEX THING” (一次性用品); “Take care of your head” (小心碰头); “Be careful when falling to the river” (小心坠河); “Refer Guide” (咨询导购); “Notice To Traveling” (游客须知) and “NO THROWING” (禁止扔垃圾), they will have a terrible impression on China. The improper and wrong translation of public signs extremely damages international image of the related cities and misleads foreign friends. A better international language environment is the key issue for the smooth development of all the sectors in a country

Here is the organization of this dissertation. The main content runs as follows. Chapter One is the brief introduction of the whole thesis, including the introduction of the brief survey of the view on translation of public signs and the significance of the research. Chapter Two is literature review and it goes straight to the definition, characteristics and early researches respectively and also introduces the basic concept and principle of Nida’s functional equivalence theory. Chapter Three analyzes different errors in translation of public signs and its causes. Chapter Four discusses the principles of translation of public signs and offer some strategies for improvement. Chapter Five is the conclusion of the whole thesis and it summarizes the ideas explored in previous chapters.

2. Literature Review

Public signs can be seen in many public places since it has been an important part in our life. It is a very effective way to accelerate the promotion of cities in China. Proper translation of public signs plays an important role in showing the spirit and characteristics of a city and making a favourable impression for foreign friends while its original function is to show directions or transmit some information. Public signs have a great influence on all people in the society including students, taxi drivers, businessmen and so on.

2.1 Definition of Public Signs

Public sign is a very special style of writing which can be found in public places to provide the public with accurate and helpful information. It is a important part of daily life and appears everywhere such as road signs, advertisements, product instructions, guidebooks, notices and so on. Here are some examples: “KEEP RIGHT”, “TAX FREE”, “Fire exit”, “No smoking”, “For Sale”, “Danger” and “Ticket Office”. Different kinds of public signs play various functions of keeping people behavior well.

However, the definition of public signs is not clear. The entry of “public signs” in “E-C Dictionary” compiles by Wang Tongyi is comparatively exacter, referring to “the information as writings or figures and writings obviously posting on the boards to direct, warn, and other information which is the con cern of other people.” (Wag Tongyi, 1990) It is clear that public signs consist of both words and figures. Some other scholars define public signs as writings posted in the public places to the public. Barry Gray, the 145th chairman of the International Organizational for Standardization, defined “Signs” like this: “Signs are anything from the simplest wayfinding or information ‘maker’ to the complicated communication of a message. Signing affects everybody—travelers, shoppers, visitors, drivers etc, whether in the business time or recreation time.” (Wangying, 2009) On basis mentioned above, public signs can be described like this: writings put in public places to give different information to people who are involved in these places. Public signs can give travelers directions, warn tourists of danger and provide drivers with traffic information. Since the various functions of the public signs are all of significance, the writings in the public signs have to seek for the standardization, integration, correct grammar, simple expression and proper language application.

2.2 Characteristics of Public Signs

The goal of translation is to achieve cross-language cultural communication to make the intended meaning understandable in the language context; because of this, the translators have to use proper strategies for original meaning. The translation expert Newmark has raised two ways of translation: the semantics translation and the communicative translation. The semantics translation focuses on maintaining original language style and the unique expression way while the communicative translation pay more attention to the transmission of the information to let the readers to think, feel, take actions, play the role of the language for the transmission and bring the function of the result (He Xueyun, 2006). The communicative translation focuses more on the mode of transmission based on the target language context instead of directly copying the original expression. Between these two strategies for translation, the semantics translation maintains the original content while the communicative translation emphasizes the effectiveness of the translation. The later strategy for translation is usually clear and understandable. Therefore, the translation of public signs obeys the communicative translation which is similar to functional equivalence raised by Nida. There are four main characteristics of public signs.

2.2.1 Conciseness

Public signs are widely used in public places because there are important in guidance. According to the certain background, audiences need to understand the signs in a short time, so the expression on public signs has to be simple and clear enough. Besides, public signs usually takes up little place and has to catch readers’ attention quickly. In order to achieve these, the language used in public signs should be simple enough. It should be noticed easily by the public and be understood well. On the other hand, if public signs seem too complex and fail to catch readers’ attention, it will lose its original function of guidance. Considering this, the translator should choose the simplest words and expression when designing the content on public signs without missing their meanings. For example: When we see the “closed” sign at the door of a shop, we all know that the shop is closed and we may come by another day. We have never seen a sign like “Sorry we are closed”. Here are several other examples: Bus stops, Way out, No smoking and Toilets, etc.

2.2.2 Directness

Indirect translation of public signs will confuse the readers and bring misunderstanding, which requires that the translators should pay more attention to people who know only a little about foreign languages. Therefore, directness of translation in public signs is quite necessary.

Here are some examples: No smoking 禁止吸烟、 Baisheng Square 百盛广场、SPEED LIMIT 5 限速5迈、NO PARKING 禁止停车.

2.2.3 Combination of Letters with Pictures

Pictures are often used with letters in public signs to catch readers’ attention and give them a more vivid impression about the information.

2.2.4 Suitable Mood

Public signs have different functions in different situations. There are four main kinds of moods of public signs: directing mood, promoting mood, restricting mood and compelling mood.

Directing mood is often used to guide readers and offer information about something that is unfamiliar to them. For example: Fire Station 消防局、Ticket Office 售票处、Way in 入口.

Promoting mood is usually used to ask the readers to do as required, such as: Keep off the grass 请勿踩踏草坪、CAUTION BEARS 熊出没注意安全、Wet Floor 地面湿滑.

Restricting mood is often used to restrict readers’ access to someplace without making them feel offended. For example: Closed to Visitors 宾客止步、Employees Only 员工专用、Construction Ahead, Please Detour 前方施工请绕行.

Compelling mood is usually used to forbid people do something. Generally speaking, it is the strongest mood. For example: No smoking 禁止吸烟、No parking 禁止停车、DO NOT DRINK 禁止饮用.

2.3 Relevant Translation Theories

Error Analysis was a theory based on Comparative Analysis in 1970s. Comparative Language School, represented by Carl James, a famous American linguist, proposed the theory of Error Analysis. They believed that foreign workers and learners erred not only in language transfer, but also in the complicacy of a second language, the defects in learning materials and learning strategies. There are five specific errors: spelling errors, terminology errors, syntax errors (morphology, syntax), connective errors and practical errors.

American translation theorist Eugene A. Nida (Eugene A. Nida 1993:52) proposed the theory of Dynamic Equivalence that “Translation consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalence of the source- language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style.” Nida later proposed a theory of Functional Equivalence and took language and culture as two closely related symbol systems. The essence of this theory is that in the practice of translation the translator should seek for the equivalence of meaning, not the same language in literal. Among different languages and cultures, the translator has to re-organize the form and structure of information correctly by looking for translation equivalence (Tan Zaixi 1984). In 1970s, German translation theorists Katharina Reiss and Hans Vermeer founded the groundbreaking theory of functionalism——the Skopos Theory. According to the Skopos theory, translation should follow three rules: the first one is skopos rule, the primary rule of the Skopos theory. It requires that the whole translation progress, including the selection of translation method and strategies, should be decided by the purpose of translation behaviour. the second one is intratextual coherence, also called coherence rule. It means that translation text must match the target language’s expression to make the readers understand and make sense in target culture and the corresponding communicative environment. The third one is called intertextual coherence, or fidelity rule. It requires that there should be a kind of corresponding relationship between source language and target language, but not exactly the same thing in context. The loyalty required by the Skopos Theory, in extent and form, is decided by the purpose of translation and the translator’s understanding on the source text (Wang Meifang, 2005). The strategies to achieve this relationship are also according to the translator’s understanding on the purpose of source text.

2.4 Early Researches

Since the 1980s, many Chinese translators have already done researchers in C-E translation of public signs. Lots of related papers of C-E translation have been published in academic magazines such as “Chinese Translators Journal”, “Chinese Journal on translating of Science and Technology”, “Shanghai Translation”, “Foreign Language and Teaching of Foreign Languages”, “Journal of Xi’an Foreign Language College”, “Foreign Languages Teaching” and “Journal of Nanjing University of Technology”. Since the year of 2004, more and more articles concerning the translation of public signs also have been published, especially in many core journals like “Chinese Translators Journal” and “Shanghai Translation on Science and Technology”.

3. Errors in C-E Translation of Public Signs

In this study, a random sample of 1,000 expressing errors of public signs have been collected and analysed. These samples are mainly from the author’s investigation and ’Chinese Public Signs Web’. Therefore, these samples are authentic, representative and typical. Public signs studied include road signs, traffic sigs, institutions’ names, tourism marking, shopping signs and other common signs which are all short and pithy. According to Carl James’s misclassification framework, the author made the statistics of the errors in types, levels, frequency of occurrence, regularity and central tendency.

3.1 Results of the Statistics

Chart

3.2 Data Analysis

As can be seen from the chart, the translation errors of public signs occurred at all levels of language, here are the errors and their frequency of occurrence: lexical error 40%, syntax error 18%, spelling error 13%, pragmatic error 18% and other errors 11%. Because most of the public signs in the study are short, connective errors are few. The followings are the analyses on errors of high frequency. (“*” refers to the wrong translation, “^” refers to the correct one)

3.2.1 Lexical Error Analysis (40%)

Lexical error is the most common error in public signs because many people mix the use of similar words.

3.2.1.1 Mixing Superordinates up with Subordinates

‘第二中学北校区’ in our city was translated into ‘The North *Area of the Second Middle School’, while the correct one should be ’The North ^Campus of the Second Middle School’. Area, which has a lot of meanings, is not a proper word when we use it to describe school.

3.2.1.2 Mixing Synonyms up with Homoionyms(近义词)

Such errors account for 10% of all the errors and account for a quarter of the lexical errors, which mean that they often occur in our daily life. An example is analyzed as follow:

‘交通管理大队第二支队’ in our city was translated into ‘The Second Traffic Management *Team of Public Security Bureau’. In this case, ‘team’ only refers to a group people who work together or play with each other, while ‘division’ means various branches that compose an institution. Therefore, translating ‘队’ into ‘Team’ is not correct and the better word is ‘Division’.

3.2.1.3 Collocational Errors(搭配错误)

Such errors include adj. - n. errors, n. - n. errors, v. - n. errors, v. – prep errors and fixed collocation errors. The followings are several examples:

(1) A public sign in one market in Huai’an ’Do not use this lift *the event of (^in the event of) a fire in the building’.

(2) A parking lot near our college was translated into ‘Car barn’, while ‘Barn’ usually refers to the small house for horses and cattle and it has nothing to do with cars.

3.2.1.4 Inequivalence in Semantic Range

The sign on Bai Sheng building ‘请走正门’ was translated into ‘Please *Enter the Main Entrance’. In this case, ‘走正门’ includes both walking in and walking out. Thus, the original translation lost the meaning of walking out and it should be changed into ‘Please ^Take the Main Entrance’

3.2.1.5 Ambiguity

Ambiguity refers to the different meanings due to the different understandings on the same word in one sentence. E.g. a ‘休息室’ in Beijing was translated into ‘Restroom’. In this case, ‘Lobby’ would be a better choose in that ‘Restroom’ is equal to ‘Toilet’.

3.2.1.6 Semantic Errors

For example, ‘宣传部’ in one city was translated into ‘The Department of *Propaganda’. This is obviously wrong for ‘Propaganda’ is a derogatory term which means ‘playing tricks on promoting something for political interests’. The accurate one is ‘The Department of ^Publicity’

3.2.2 Syntax Errors (18%)

3.2.2.1 Errors in Forms (plural suffix, mixing up word classes etc.)

(1) The public sign in a Museum in Beijing: All *Kind (^Kinds) of Chinese Arts and Crafts are on Display.

(2) The signs in many restaurants in Huai’an: ‘Floor Is *Slipper’(小心地滑) should be changed into ‘^Floor Is Slippery’.

3.2.2.2 Errors in Word Order

(1) 昆山书城南东店: *Kunshan’s City of Books Nandong Bookstore. It breaks the common way of expressing address in English. The correct one should be Nandong Bookstore of Kunshan Book-Center.

(2)中小型企业: ‘*medium-sized and small enterprises’ should be translated into ‘^small and medium-sized enterprises’.

3.2.2.3 Errors in Sentences

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