摘 要

近年来，旅游业在全球范围内取得了长足的发展，不仅对世界经济的繁荣发挥了巨大的推动作用，还有效促进了国际间的文化交流。在这样的背景下，研究旅游景点介绍的翻译就有了十分重要的现实意义。旅游是文化的一种载体，文化则是旅游的灵魂，始终蕴含在旅游活动中，大多数到中国来的外国游客要借助英文的景点介绍才能了解其旅游目的地，才能计划其行程并实现旅游所追求的文化享受，但是目前旅游市场上旅游资料的英文翻译普遍存在很多问题。本文从跨文化视角出发，以开平碉楼文化旅游区实地的中文介绍及其英文翻译为素材，分析某些错误或不当的译文，在能力允许的情况下对其进行重译，力求更好地表达和传递开平碉楼所蕴含的特殊文化与历史内涵，同时探究造成误译的原因以及解决问题的对策，为提高开平碉楼与村落旅游区景点介绍翻译的质量尽绵薄之力。

关键词：跨文化视角，开平碉楼与村落，景点介绍的英译，翻译问题，翻译策略

Abstract

In recent years, tourism has made great progress worldwide. It does not just play a huge role in promoting the prosperity of the world economy, but also effectively promotes international cultural exchanges. In this context, the study on C-E translation of scenic spots introduction has a very important practical significance. Tourism is a carrier of culture. Culture is the soul of tourism and it is always contained in tourist activities. Most foreign tourists who come to China must rely on the English scenic spots introduction to know about their destinations before they can plan their itinerary and achieve the cultural enjoyment that tourism pursues, however, there are many problems in the current translation of tourism materials in the Chinese tourism market. This article will take a cross-cultural perspective and use the Chinese introduction as well as their English translations of the Kaiping Diaolou Cultural Tourist Attraction as examples to analyze some wrong or inappropriate translations, re-translate them if capability promised, strive to better express and convey the special culture and historical connotation of the Diaolou. Meanwhile, it will explore the causes of mistranslations and the countermeasures to solve them, hoping to help improving the quality of the translation of Kaiping Diaolou and Villages tourist areas.

Key words: cross-cultural perspective; Kaiping Diaolou and Villages; C-E translation of scenic spots introduction; translation problems; translation strategies

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Literature Review 3

2.1 Concept definition: cross-cultural perspective 3

2.2 Cross-cultural translation 4

3 A Brief Introduction to Kaiping Diaolou and Villages 6

3.1 The historical background 6

3.2 The status quo 7

4 Case Study of Kaiping Diaolou and Villages Introductions 9

4.1 Overview of scenic name translation 9

4.2 A case study of introduction translation 11

4.2.1 Improper use of words 12

4.2.2 Lexical redundancy 13

4.2.3 Extra and missing translation 14

4.2.4 Cultural default 16

4.2.5 Inconsistent expressions 20

4.3 Causes and countermeasures of mistranslation 21

5 Conclusions 24

References 26

Acknowledgements 28

A Study on C-E Translation of Scenic Spots Introduction to Kaiping Diaolou and Villages from the Cross Cultural Perspective

1 Introduction

Tourism and culture are closely integrated. However, different countries and nations have their own unique culture, that is, cultural differences exist objectively. Therefore, to some extent, tourism is actually a kind of cross-cultural communication, especially for foreign-related tour guides, that is, the interaction between foreign tourists, national guides and tourism resources, which make this cross-cultural feature particularly prominent. For foreign tourists, what really attract them are Chinese ancient history and rich cultural heritage. In order to allow foreign tourists to have a specific and accurate understanding of Chinese tourism culture, we must maximally reflect the rich connotations of Chinese traditional culture, places of historic interest, garden architecture and customs.

With the rapid development of tourism industry, the introductions to numerous tourist attractions around the world has been translated into the world’s predominant languages. Introductions of domestic tourist attractions have been translated into English, Japanese, Korean, French and other languages according to their need. Located in Guangdong Province, Kaiping Diaolou and Villages, as one of the world cultural heritage, also attracted some attention of experts and scholars, and at present, considerable research achievements have been reached, including architectural style, design aesthetics, exploitation and protection, sustainable development, management and other aspects. However, there are few studies on the translation of scenic spots, and the directly related English literature is also not enough.

Kaiping Diaolou and Villages reflect the extensive communication between modern Chinese and western cultures in Chinese villages. They integrate the unique architectural art of traditional Chinese villages and the west, and become a monument to overseas Chinese culture. It is also the most persuasive historical testimony of the mutual influence and integration between the Chinese immigrant culture and diverse ethnic groups in that historical period and the promotion of the common development of mankind. In addition, Kaiping Diaolou also highlights the history of overseas Chinese and the local people actively accepting western culture. The Diaolou is an important evidence to the political, economic and cultural advance of Kaiping. It is not simply a mirror of the history of the overseas Chinese who had struggled hard to defend the country, but also a living museum of contemporary architecture, as well as a unique art gallery. From this, we can see that Kaiping Diaolou has quite rich cultural connotations, which is also one of the reasons why it has become the world cultural heritage. As the world cultural heritage, Diaolou draws the attention of tourists from both home and abroad. With the attention, Kaiping Diaolou can be gradually internationalized, however, progress needs high-quality translation of the introductory texts. Unfortunately, there are many problems in existing translation texts, such as ambiguous background information, cumbersome expressions, inconsistencies, etc., mostly because the translator did not consider the position of the text recipient, leading that the readers have no access to fully understand and accept the transmission of the culture in the translated text.

The famous overseas Chinese hometown, Kaiping, is my adopted hometown, where for more than fifteen years I have lived. I have experienced the celebration of the whole city for succeeding in applying for the World Heritage List, and I also have seen the Kaiping government administration providing great protection and maintenance for Diaolous and Villages. I start the study on C-E translation of the scenic spots introductions to Kaiping Diaolou and Villages from the cross cultural perspective, with the hope that based on a deeper understanding of the historical and architectural culture of the Diaolou, taking their Chinese introductions and English translations as materials, analyze certain erroneous translations, re-translate them if capability promised, trying to express and transfer better the special historical and cultural connotation of the Kaiping Diaolou, and meanwhile explore the causes of mistranslations and countermeasures.

The example sentences in this article are extracted from various published publicity materials, card commentary of the Kaiping Diaolou and Village tourist attractions (mainly Li Garden scenic spot) and some Internet pages.

2 Literature Review

This part is intended to introduce the cross-cultural perspective and cross-cultural translation. It begins with an introduction to the definition of cross-cultural perspective, going together with the relationship between the cross-cultural perspective and translation behavior. Then, cross-cultural translation, including its concept and significance, is discussed with previous research.

2.1 Concept definition: cross-cultural perspective

“Cross culture” refers to “the communication of coding and decoding of information by people from different cultural backgrounds”, which is a full and correct understanding of cultural phenomena, customs, habits, etc., which are different from or in conflict with the national culture, and based on this, the exotic culture is accepted and adapted with an inclusive attitude.

Translation itself is a type of cross-cultural language conversion behavior. It is the behavior of “representing exactly what one language has already expressed in another language”, whose purpose is to “reproduce the source language information from the semantics to the style of the nearest and most natural equivalence language”. It can be observed that language and culture are interrelated, so language is ultimately used to carry culture rather than just express culture. So we “must” and “should” examine translation from a cross-cultural perspective. Cross-cultural theory is to interpret the different values and outlooks of life in the East and the West from various perspectives, in order to establish an East-West cultural consensus, promote cultural communication between the East and the West, and pursue an intermediary with new culture and new values, make each other acceptable, and ultimately promote success communication, avoiding conflicts between different cultures.