Abstract

Public signs in English are essential to the development of international interaction for China. We can see varies of public signs around the streets, stores and other public places. Therefore, public signs have wide applications and significance. Many linguists and translators have made researches in this area from many aspects and made many achievements. But on the whole, the work of translation of signs still has many improvements to be made. This paper takes a close look at the present situation on C - E translation of public signs and offers some ideas for the future research in this area.

Keywords : Public signs; C-E translation; present situation; problems

摘要

随着中国与世界合作的日益增多以及外国企业和人员不断涌入中国，公示语的重要意义对中国的发展起到了重要的作用。公示语是指在公共场所给公众看的文字语言, 用途广泛, 意义重大。近年来众多语言学、翻译学专家对公示语的翻译进行了多方面的研究和探讨, 取得了一定的成绩。但从整体看还存在着诸多不足。翻译的不规范以及错误等问题都是现在公示语翻译中存在的问题。本文旨在从当今公示语翻译的现在，分析公示语的用途以及翻译的方法和策略。同时，借鉴外国的翻译理论和方法，提高公示语翻译的准确度和实际应用价值。

关键词：公示语；汉英翻译；现状；问题

1. Introduction
 Nowadays, China interacted with international economy and politics rapidly. In 1995, China eventually joined the WTO; in 2008, China successfully held the 2008 Olympic games; in 2010, Shanghai World Expo and 2010 Asian games in Guangzhou. This indicates that China will play an important role in the World stage. Now, China is accelerating the steps to interact with the globalization. At the same time, more and more foreigners, investors and tourists are willing to come to China. Considering the convenience for the foreigners, more and more public places are provided with the public signs. Therefore, the translation of public signs has become a very important window to foreigners and foreign countries. In recent years, throughout the country, people have advocated various kinds of activities to correct errors of public signs in order to improve our country’s translation of public signs circumstance, humanities environment and are provided with better services for external exchange, economy and culture development. Many experts and scholars have taken part in this activity and achieved a lot. For example, Beijing international Studies University has set up the translation of public signs research center, and successfully held the first National Public Signs Translation Seminar. However, on the whole, there are still a lot of problems existing in translation of public signs, such as: different terminology, lack of creativity and simple pattern.