旅游英语翻译特点及其技巧

Outline
1. Introduction
2. The Linguistic Characteristics of Tourism English
2.1 Conciseness and Vividness
2.2 Hospitality and Infectiousness
2.3 Comprehensiveness and Exposition
3. The Theory and Skills of Translation in Tourism English 3.1 Theory of translation
3.2 Translation skills
3.2.1 Addition and Explanation
3.2.2 Deletion
3.2.3 Paraphrase
3.2.4 Rewriting
4. Conclusion
旅游英语的特点及其翻译技巧
【摘要】：近年来随着社会经济的发展,旅游事业也以前所未有的速度迅猛发展。

越来越多的外国游客涌向中国, 旅游英语的重要性也日益显现出来。

对此,本文首先通过对旅游英语本身的研究,揭示了旅游英语的语言功能,并且从语言学和文化的角度,分析了旅游英语的特点及其翻译技巧。

如果译者可以灵活运用他们来指导旅游英语的翻译,提高旅游资料的翻译质量,就能更广泛地传播中国文化,更好地促进国际交流。

【关键词】：旅游英语；特点；翻译技巧
Tourism English's Characteristics and Its
Translation Skills
福建师范大学福清分校外语系 2009级英语双专业
118682008065 黄娟指导老师：韦忠生
【Abstract】In recent years, with the development of social economy, tourist industry has a golden opportunity to develop . More and more foreign tourists have been flowing into China for a visit, and tourism English has become necessary and booming. This paper firstly aims at exploring the language functions of tourism English, and analyzes its distinctive features and translation skills in terms of linguistics and culture. If the translators can flexibly apply them to guide the tourism translation and deal with the cultural difference properly, they can improve the quality of English version of tourism materials to spread Chinese culture more widely and promote international communication.
【Key Words】tourism English; characteristics; translation skills
1. Introduction
Tourism English, as it is so called, is the English language used for tourism and is a particular variety of English in terms of linguistics. It appears with the development of tourism industry, especially international tourism. When people make a visit to some place, they will be provided with all kinds of services needed during the tour.
Recently, China has become one of the most popular tourist destinations and one of the leading countries of world tourism industry. Due to the development of tourism in China, tourism English becomes more and more important nowadays in China. As a result, tourism English appears as a term in many researches and textbooks with the meaning of English language that is used for tourism. Since China has been recognized as an approved destination by many countries officially, more and more foreign tourists have been flowing into China for a visit, and tourism English has become necessary and booming as a result, from airport to hotel and restaurant, from tourism coach to tourist spot. English is used whenever a foreign tourist is received.
We suppose that China's tourism would not have advanced smoothly without the development of tourism English. Therefore, the detailed study on tourism English itself will be helpful for the Chinese tourism industry and promote the development of Chinese economy.
2. The Linguistics Characteristics of Tourism English
2.1. Conciseness and Vividness
Tourism English always uses lively phrases, vivid and elegant description, giving people great enjoyment and inspiring visitors to visit. The words are concise and vivid. For example:
望着隔江的山色,岚翠鲜明,那江中来往的船只,帆樯历历可数；那一轮红日,沉沉的傍着山头下去了。

They gazed at the green, fresh mountains across the river, the boat playing to and fro—they could see each sail quite clearly—and the red sun gradually sinking behind the mountains(Shan Qichang,1990:259).
The subject and predicate of these phrases are “they grazed”, which make the sentence concise and easy to understand. Another example is a description of Exeter in the following:
“Exeter is an important commercial center for the South West, and successfully combines the advantages of a modern city with the charm of one with a long and colorful history. Aspects of this history are easily seen in the medieval Cathedral, the Guildhall and the Quay, which is now a popular waterfront venue. Exeter has a population of around 100,000 and has all the shops and cultural and recreational facilities you would expect to find in a thriving university town. Some of the best countryside in Britain is very close to Exeter. The Dartmoor National Park is to the west, and Exmoor, which also has spectacular scenery, is to the north. The coastal town of Exmouth, with its sandy beaches, is about nine miles away.”
Also for example:
“The sky reflected in the water turned the Seine into a lovely shade of blue which trembled in the hazy sunshine filtering through leafy branches of the trees lining the river's edge.”(Kang Ning, Zhang Yu, 2006:158-163).
In order to make the language easy to read and remember, simple words frequently used in tourism writing tend to be very simple with only one or two syllables. These words are concise, easy to understand and strong in rhythm. These phrases are beautiful and vivid. They are used to enumerate the attractive spots in a certain tourist destination and introduce their features. The vivid language helps to invite a relaxed response from target readers, which can meet the potential tourists' need of merry-making and fun-seeking. Reading these descriptions of scenic spots gives you the feeling of being on the scene personally.
2.2 Hospitality and Infectiousness
“ Ireland has an extraordinary amount to offer anyone looking for a great night out. Restaurants, theater, the opera and more. We'll save you a seat. Call 1,800. Shamrock or visit our web site for more information.
Your very own Ireland.
Discover it at .”(Ding Dagang, 2010:11-13).
This is a promotion ad of the Ireland tourist-bureau. Firstly, on the signboard, the sentence “built in the 18th century ” brings travelers with a regression feeling. “entertain” makes people full of expectation of entertainment. “night out, restaurants, theater, the opera ” also show pleasures of the theme. In the slogan, “Your very own ” means that Irish tourism works for you only. The word “discover ”can stimulate travelers and motivate them to take action.
Sometimes, they are to persuade and suggest things that the travelers may not previously have considered. Witty, charming and beautifully constructed
tourism
advertisement can lubricate the persuasion process. This process may have an immediate effect, but more likely, it may influence behavior some time later. On the one hand, travelers look for novelty and special feeling from the experience; on the other hand, they need familiar and warm atmosphere to arouse their emotion. Using Hospitality and Infectiousness as a way to solicit can reduce the resistance of potential travelers and establish a sincere and friendly atmosphere.
2.3 Comprehensiveness and Exposition
Tourism English congregates many other knowledges, so it has specific character. It is a comprehensive language including catering, guide, transportation and professional knowledges.In the meanwhile, it contains a lot of terminologies of tourist industry. In addition, tourism English can be divided into written and oral English according to the application. Written tourism English is always used in scenic spot introduction, historical information, souvenir or commemorative book. This requires formal written language. Besides the accuracy of translation, the translation of written tourism texts should be characterized by lifelikeness. That means in addition to accuracy, we need more vivid words to represent the soul of the scenic spot culture. This characteristic is also the typical character that distinguishes from other English translation.
For example, an indicator is needed to translate one domestic scenic spot. Because the content of the stone inscription is written by a famous philosopher in history, it is difficult to translate. The translator is incapable of finding accurate English words to express the whole information. Finally, the translator had to adopt literal translation. To great extent, this does harm to the original and historical meanings. The oral tourism English is more flexible. This is because the guide must communicate with the visitors in oral English, so short words and phrase are more often used in spoken tourism English, and the syntax is not strictly limited. Take an example:
孟姜女哭长城的故事旁证了建筑长城所付出的巨大代价——除了钱币，还
有众多建筑者的躯体。

The legend that the collapse of the Wall was caused by the cry of a woman named Meng Jiang—nu，whose husband died in the construction of the Great Wall，is an evidence showing that the price of building this wonder of the world was not only money，but also the lives of constructors(Zhou Qiao, 2007).
3. The theory and skills of translation in tourism English
3.1 Theory of translation
Tourism translation is cross-culture, cross-language, cross-society and cross-mentality interaction. Functionalist translation theory was first generated in Germany in 1970s. This theory has undergone three principal phases: Katharina Reiss first put forward functionalist translation criticism; Hans Vermeer and Justa Holz-Manttari developed and enriched functionalist theory; Christiane Nord further studied this theory and introduced it in all-round way in English for the first time so that it has caused greater attention in translation field. Today, it has evolved into a relatively complete theory to guide translating practice. As Tourism translation aims at providing traveling information for foreigners and arousing their interest to visit a certain tourist destination in China, the intended function of the target text in the target situation is a key factor that translator has to keep in mind in the translation. Based on functionalism, the thesis seeks effective ways such as: addition, explanation, omission, paraphrase and rewriting to improve the translation quality of tourism text.
The paper attempts to carry out a study on the C-E (TL) translation from the German Functionalist perspective. It adopts Hans J. Vermeer's Skopostheorie as the guiding theory supplemented by the other German theorists' ideas especially Reiss's Text Typology to provide the present study with the German Functionalist theoretical framework.
In the light of Functionalism, it is the intended purpose of the TT that determines the translation methods and strategies. This is regarded as the top-ranking rule for any translation together with two subordinate rules i.e. The Coherence rule and the
Fidelity rule. The theoretical nucleus of Skopostheorie is the translational purpose and the function of the TT. If we regard the translation as intercultural action, we must attach importance to the communicative function of the TT in the target culture and shift the focus from the ST to the target culture and the TT readers. The form of translation, the translation strategies and methods are all determined by the Skopos and function of the TT (Zhang Meifang, 2005:197).
3.2 Translation skills
3.2.1 Addition and Explanation
Culture-specific items are notoriously difficult to translate and indeed can be seen as indicating the limits of translatable. If items are specific to a particular culture, then their very specificity would seem to preclude translation into languages of other culture. Words in their untranslated state mark out cultural difference. One is required to add and explain the information of culture. In this way the other culture should “speak to everyone” in the target language. For example:
(桃花源)始建于晋,初兴于唐,鼎盛于宋,大毁于元。

时兴时衰于明清,萧条于民国,渐复于解放后,大规模修复开发于1990。

Taohuayuan(the peach flower source)was first built in the Jin Dynasty(256-439A.D), began to take shape in the Tang Dynasty(618-709), flourished in the Song Dynasty(960-1297), and went to ruin in the Yuan Dynasty(1279-1368).With ups and downs through the Ming and Qing Dynasties(1368-1911), it was almost abandoned in the times of the Republic of China(1912-1949).Its restoration was made from the year 1949 and a large-scale expansion and development began in 1990(Jia Wenbo, 2004:137-138).
Here the difficulty is how to translate the Taohuayuan. The foreign visitors can't figure out the meaning if we translate it in Chinese Pin－yin. But if they are translated to English literally without being given the pronunciation, the foreign visitors will be confused and wonder how the Chinese ancient writer could write in English. And the translator adds the information about the time of history in the version to achieve the
aim of the source text: to show that the Taohuayuan are of high significance as one of Chinese cultural relics.
Hence, while translating such culture-specific information, the first principle that the translator should bear in mind is that she/he should endeavor to convey culture elements embedded in Chinese culture to foreign tourists in order to satisfy their curiosity about Chinese culture while providing maximum information to facilitate their visit to China.
3.2.2 Deletion
Many flowery and pompous expressions are habitually used in essay. They often do not have much substantial meaning and are used mainly for the sake of rhythm and parallelism or to heighten the atmosphere. Although, they are regarded as natural or indispensable elements in Chinese, they actually add nothing to the meaning (Jia Wenbo, 2004:142). If they are totally rendered by the translator, the target version does not conform to idiomatic English and it adds the burden on the target readers. In this situation, the strategy of omission is commonly used in tourism translation to make the English version closer to the plain style of essay. Example:
当你步入沟中,便可见湖沼淡荡生辉,瀑布舒洒碧玉。

一到金秋,满山枫叶绛红,盛夏,湖山幽翠。

仲春,树绿花艳……,四时都呈现出它的天然原始,宁静幽深。

Mystic lakes and sparkling waterfalls captivate your eyes as you enter the ravine. The trees are in their greenest in spring when intensified by colorful flowers. In summer, warm tints spread over the hills and lake lands. As summer merges into autumn, the maple trees turn fiery-red. Splashing color through the thick forest hills…Tranquility pervades primitive Jiuzhaigou throughout the year (Hong Ming, 2006).
In the original text, we find that there is an abundant use of elegant or graceful four-character phrases, such as“淡荡生辉”,“舒洒碧玉”,“湖山幽翠”,“树绿花艳”and “宁静幽深”.For foreign visitors, these elegant words decrease the credibility of the text and the subjective emotional expressions are too illusive to grasp. The description of the scenery in the CTT is too detailed to appeal to the target readers.
Thus, the translator can simplify the description and make it concise and plain.
3.2.3 Paraphrase
It is unavoidable that differences between Chinese and western culture tend to cause cultural conflicts. Some unique Chinese cultural information, if translated directly, is not acceptable to the exotic readers and leads to the failure to achieve the purpose of translation. For example:
该旅馆位于“十里蛙声不断,九溪曲流潺潺”的好地方。

This is a really comfortable hotel endowed with a poetic environment (Lin Xiaoqin, 2008).
In the eyes of the Chinese people, “the croaking of frogs”and “brooks”are associated with an idyllic country life. So living in such a hotel can provide the visitors with a chance to enjoy nature. If the sentence is rendered literally, the foreign visitors may naturally think that the environment of the hotel is noisy. And certainly, they will not choose to visit such a place. This obviously obstructs the achievement of the vocative function. Also for example:
原来这黛玉秉绝代之姿容,具稀世之俊美,不期这一哭,那些附近的柳枝花朵上宿鸟栖鸦,一闻此声,俱忒楞楞飞起远避,不忍再听。

正是：花魂点点无情绪,鸟婪痴痴何处惊。

We can translate: And the sound of this beauty's weeping----for Dai-yu was the loveliest creature ever seen----made the birds fly away from their roosts on the willows and flowering trees, unable to endure the sorrows of her weeping. Truly: Tears filled each flowers and grief their hearts perturbed, and silly birds from their nests disturbed (Shan Qichang, 1990:275).
This is a good example for the method of paraphrase. The meaning of the source language is quite difficult for people to understand, but the translator uses the paraphrase method to simplify the meaning, that is to use simpler and easier words to express the original meaning which is usually very difficult and complicated. In this example, we can see that there are just very simple words instead of any complicated words, which is easier for readers to understand the original meaning, besides, the。