Abstract

Public signs are a kind of symbolic language with non-commercial behavior. They are open to the public with just several words or some simple pictures, creating lots of convenience for people in modern society. Public signs, which are very practical in our daily life, include business travel signs, promoting signs, company signs, tourism signs and so on, symbolizing the images of our country, covering food, clothing, shelter and means of transportation, education as well as many other fields, aim at regulating, directing, restricting people’s behavior. With the step into the WTO, China has been developing rapidly now. Every year many great events are held, attracting large quantities of foreign visitors. So the public signs play an important role during their visit, thus the translation of the Chinese version requires great precision. Translation is the bridge in the process of communicating in different languages. Early in the 1970s, German functional translation theorists have put forward that translation is a kind of relation between functional target text and specific source text. This definition focuses not on the transformation of the original language and target language, but emphasizes the function of translation in a specific cultural context. However, the study in China really started late. This thesis aims to do an elementary research about the translation of public signs from the perspective of the functional translation theory and show the comprehensive analysis of the functional translation skills and methods.

Key words: public signs, functional translation, principles and skills

摘要

公共标识语是一种非商业性的符号语言，它们仅以几个词或者一幅简单的图画呈献给公众，为现代社会的人们提供了很多便捷之处，公共标识语代表着一个国家的语言形象，在人们的日常生活中有着相当的实用价值，包括商务旅行标志，促销标识，企业标志，旅游景点标识，涵盖了衣食住行以及教育等多个领域，旨在指示，规范，约束人们的生活行为.随着中国加入世贸组织之后，现在发展迅速，每年有许多重大活动在中国举行，吸引了大量外国游客，因此公共标识语在他们拜访期间发挥了举足轻重的作用，对于中文译本的翻译也要求相当高的精准度.翻译是各种语言之间交流的一种工具.早在20世纪70年代，德国功能性翻译理论家提出翻译是功能型目标文本和原文本之间的一种联系.这样的定义注重的不仅仅是原文本和目标文本之间的语言转换，而是着重强调在了解文化基础上的功能性翻译的过程.但是在中国关于这一方面的研究起步较晚.该论文将从功能性翻译的角度对公共标识语的翻译做一个初步的研究，同时也从功能性翻译的角度对翻译的技巧和方法做一个全面的分析.

关键词：公共标识语，功能性翻译