英语论文网

摘要：本文是英语硕士论文，Pubic signs have been around us for a long time. However, it is a relatively newdevelopment studying on public signs. It's generally believed that studies on publicsigns began in the late 1990s. From then on，more and more scholars of theachievements in sociolinguistics and applied linguistics show great interests in thispoint.

e Transfer of Syntactic Equivalence .........51
4.2 Causes of Sociopragmatic Failures......... 52

Chapter Five Strategies for Avoiding Pragmatic Failures in Translating Chinese Public Signs

5.1 Strategies of Semantic Translation
Newmark (2001: 39) holds that semantic translation tries to translate the exactcontextual meaning of the original as closely as the semantic and syntactic structuresof the second language. In other words, semantic translation aims at preserving thelanguage characteristics and peculiar form of expressions of the original so that thecontents and expressive functions of the first language can be reproduced with thesecond language, namely, "recreate the precise flavor and tone of the original" (ibid.47).Semantic translation has the purpose of embracing the total meaning of a text. Soin the practice of translation, if the translator is confronted with the text, which is of asingle informative fimction, can be used in the same situation and has the sameapplication functions in both Chinese and western cultures，then he/ she can adoptNewmark's semantic translation. C-E translation of the public signs of serving anddirecting functions can employ the SOTiantic translation, i.e. translating the text wordfor word. For example: “网巴” can be translated as "Internet Cafe" not "internet bar"in some places, “高速公路” as "Express Way”，“旅游服务中心” as "Visitor Center"，‘‘购物商城” as "Shopping Mali”，and so on. In this way，the misunderstandingscaused by pragmalinguistic failures can be avoided largely.
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Conclusion

Public signs are pervasive in our daily life. So are the English versions of them.As a matter of fact, appropriate translations of the public signs can guarantee a goodcommimication between the Chinese and the international people. However，for sortsof reasons, there are still some problems in C-E translation of the public si逆s,especially the pragmatic failures in the English versions, which has causedmisunderstandings in the course of communications between the sign writers and theirintended readers, and thereby brought damages to the international images of China.In view of this, the thesis, based on the previous studies, makes a forther study on thisissue.Because the errors in spelling and grammar can be found easily by the public, thethesis mainly focuses on the pragmatic failures in C-E translation of the public signs.Though some researches have been carried out from the perspective of pragmaticfailure, they are conducted in a relatively narrow sense. In the thesis, first of all, thequantitative analysis of the collected data is conducted after the introduction of thepublic signs. Then based on the theory of pragmatic failure proposed by Thomas in1983, some specific aspects of pragmatic failures embodied in C-E translation of thepublic signs are analyzed with specific examples. Through the analysis, the authorfinds that the causes of pragmalinguistic failures in C-E translation of the public signsmainly lie in negative transfer of semantic equivalence and syntactic equivalence. Andthe causes of sociopragmatic failure are closely related to the ignorance of differentassociative meanings, inappropriate mood and tone and culture default in translationtext.
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