旅游英语论文
孙畅200907050102420 英专09-2
新疆医科大学
教育学学期论文
Cultural transmission in tourist materials translation with
Xinjiang characterizes
地域特色新疆旅游文本中文化的传递
学生姓名：孙畅
学生学号：200907050102420
学生专业：英语专业
指导教师：韩英老师
研究起止时间：2012年12月14日
所在学院：语言文化学院
Cultural transmission in tourist materials translation with
Xinjiang characterizes
Abstract:
There are two main kinds of tourism resources in a region, which are natural landscape and regional recourses. They are consistent and lay solid objective basis on the development of tourism .Xinjiang is one of the most versatile areas in cultural resources in china ,which are characteristic of versatility ,mutual benefits ,ease in constitution ,and when we heard a songs singing: unwrap your veil and let me see your face ,Xinjiang ,located on the ancient silk road ,is never but lack of interest from people at home and abroad. More and more people from overseas travel to Xinjiang .More and more tourist materials need to be translated into English, but the quality of such kinds of translation is not very good and exact. What are the reasons for the poor quality of the translation of the tourist materials? I think that the main reason lies in the cultural factors instead of linguistic factors. Because of the different culture background, we can not use word-to-word translation, especially in Xinjiang. When we translate or interpret these kinds of materials, we should specialize in culture background of Xinjiang.
The paper begins with some general discussion about culture. Then the cultural differences between the Han and Uygur (a minor nationality living in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in China) and give some suggestive method for translating tourist materials.
Key words: Culture, Cultural differences, Tourist materials, English translation
Contents
1 Introduction
2 Tourism Materials
2.1 The Functions of Tourism Materials
2.1.1 Informative Function
2.1.2 Persuasive Function
2.1.3 Operative Function
2.2 The Characteristics of Tourism Materials
3 Cultural differences
3.1 Tourist Psychological Difference
3.2 Religious and Customary Difference
3.3 Ethnic and Value difference
3.4 Aesthetical standard Difference
4 The Translation of the Tourist Materials and the Approaches 4.1 Explanation
4.2 Adding
4.3 Deletion
4.4 Analogy
5 Conclusion
6 Bibliography
1 Introduction
With the development of Xinjiang tourist trade, more and more materials concerning it need to be translated into English. Among the existing versions, there are many successful examples. But, at the same time, there are many problems in the translation of the tourist materials for we make some mistake in understanding the Uyghur’s different and unique culture. So the quality of such kind of translation is not very satisfactory. It is very necessary for us to make some analysis of the reasons of the poor quality of such kind of translation, and then make improvement,. This article will make tentative study on the topic of Xinjiang tourist literature translation, focus on cultural factors which affect effective translating of the tourist materials. It will begin with some general concepts concerning the term "culture"; discuss the relationship between language, culture and translating.
2 Tourism Materials
Tourism materials’function and characteristics are essential in the research of tourism materials. The function such as informative function, persuasive function and operative function are the most important functions of tourism materials.
2.1 The Functions of Tourism Materials
Tourism materials aim at providing the various potential visitors and readers with relevant information about a tourist spot. This kind of material makes readers know more about the information of a tourism attraction and, at the same time, motivates them to take this journey, we can know that tourism materials have the following functions
2.1.1 Informative Function
Informative function is an essential one. It refers to the useful information which is enough to make the potential visitors get to know about their intended destination. As a means of publicity, the tourism’s information texts are usually regarded as the first step to make customers know about the commercial products. Before the potential visitors make the decision of visiting, they always want to gain enough information about their destination before hand.
For example:
Xinjiang is located in the northwestern frontier of china and heartland of euro-asian continent ,covering an area of 1.66million square kilometers ,about one sixth of the
land area in china,
新疆维吾尔自治区位于祖国西北部边陲，地处亚欧大陆腹地，面积166万国平方公里，约占全国陆地面积六分之一。
Xinjiang landform is sketched out by two basins hemmed in by three mountains ,with the Altay mountain in the north ,the Kunlun mountain raising in the south and the Tianshan mountain standing in the middle, which divides Xinjiang into north and south Xinjiang
天山地貌总的轮廓是三山夹两盆，北面是阿尔泰山，南面是昆仑山，天山横贯中部，将新疆分为北疆和南疆。
The above pamphlet for Xinjiang gives a brief introduction of its location, geography and artistic values. Guidebooks of cities or countries offer an introduction to a country or a city and contain the basic information.
2.1.2 Persuasive Function
Persuasive function is to make readers have emotional resonance. And through tourism publicity materials, translators can attract the readers' attention. Undoubtedly, it is impossible to attract the readers' eyeball and stimulate their desire to buy simply by enumerating the relevant information of the tourist attraction. A good publicity text can not only give information to readers but also make readers cheerful even before they visit. This kind of pleasure can leave a deep impression on readers' mind and quickly remember the content of publicity materials. Most importantly, it can make the potential customers willing to go. Besides, a good publicity text should vividly present the characteristics of scenic spots which are different from others to a maximum extent, to make the potential visitor easily remember in their minds. In a word, we should realize that a good tourism publicity material needs to have both aesthetic value and memory value.
For example
The people’s park is in the centre of the city of Urumqi, the lake was originally formed by a blocked stretch of water from the Urumqi river. The water in it is clam and clean, just like a mirror, so it has another name “mirror lake”, one the banks, branches of old trees crisscross and young tender branched and twigs Hang down to stroke the water, in the summer, the clear moon is reflected on the lake, creating a poetic scene, in winter, the snow-covered frozen lake becomes a natural public skating rink, the Chaoyang pavilion and the garden in the garden are also fascinating
places for tourists.
人民公园位于乌鲁木齐市中心，其中水清如镜，故得名鉴湖，湖岸老树拱抱，柔枝浮水，盛夏夜晚皓月当空，清幽水煎的一轮明月闪烁，颇富有诗情画意。隆冬漫天雪舞，鉴湖有成为天然溜冰场，其他如晁阳阁和园中园也都会让游人流连忘返。
Entering Xinjiang, land of song and dance, you will be carried away by colorful dances and songs. Here, whether on days of festivity or wedding occasion or farewell party and reception, one will feast eyes with incredible dance and music.
走进歌舞之乡的新疆，你就会被多姿多彩的欢歌喜舞陶醉、倾倒。在这里，无论是喜庆节日，还是婚娶佳期，都会有妙不可言的歌舞，令你一饱眼福。(The purpose of these materials is to welcome tourists to Xinjiang, to enjoy the dances and songs.)
(The purpose of these materials is to welcome tourists to Xinjiang, to enjoy the dances and songs. This kind of pleasure can leave a deep impression on readers' mind and quickly remember the content of publicity materials.)
2.1.3 Operative Function
The ultimate goal of tourism publicity materials is to inspire or persuade the potential visitors to make the decision of visiting, namely, make them accept this publicity and take the journey afterwards. The publicity material is to arouse readers' interest, turn them to potential tourists, and urge them to visit the scenic spots finally. So, the operative function is the most fundamental function as well as the most important one. But the realization of this function is on the basis of informative function and persuasive function. The above three functions of tourism publicity materials are linked closely and cannot be separated. The most imp9ortant function is certainly the operative function.
For example
Fires class service to all gusts (slogan of tourist service)
创一流服务，迎四海嘉宾
No trip to kashgar, no experience in Xinjiang (ads of tourist promotion)
不到喀什等于没有到新疆
Xinjiang welcomes you
新疆欢迎您
He will never know how big china is unless he makes a trip to Xinjiang
没来过新疆，不知中国有多大
Only when materials provide readers with enough information and motivate their curiosity can they make their thoughts turn into real action.
2.2 The Characteristics of Tourism Materials
Different from other publicity materials, the Xinjiang tourism materials have their own distinguishing features. The authors of tourism materials who want to achieve the best commercial and cultural effects always need to consider many factors, such as the target customers’cultural and literary background, the native culture’s needs and so on. Generally, tourism materials have the following features: (1) the styles of tourism materials are usually description, narration and exposition. But they all have one purpose, which is, by describing the features of tourist spots to attract the eyeballs of readers, turning them into visitors. (2) The practicality of tourism materials is very obvious; it includes informative, persuasive and operative function.
(3) In addition to the information of natural scenery, tourism materials also include cultural information since culture is the soul of tourism.
3 Cultural Differences
It is generally believed that two different languages have different ways of expression, and the intensification of feelings is also different. In order to achieve the goals such as conveying information, helping advertising and arousing visitors’interest, translators must have a strong cultural difference consciousness between the Han and Uygur, and also the Western and Chinese
3.1Definition of Culture
Although “culture” derived from different sources in the West and East, the understanding of the term now has become unified. However, to define “culture”precisely remains no easy job.
Culture is a particular society or civilization, especially considered in relation to its beliefs, way of life, or art. Morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society’ (Macura V." Culture as Translation”)
3.2 Psychological Difference
The different motives of the western visitors and domestic visitors reflect the psychological differences between them. For most domestic visitors, the most important reason for their touring is to admire the beautiful scenery and relax them. However, for the western visitors, it is quite different; they come to Xinjiang not just for the natural scenery, but the mysterious oriental culture and positive feature of food of Xinjiang. And the people of Xinjiang are simple, honest, outspoken, and hospitable. They love to sing and dance, and enjoy reputation for hospitality, but the visitors from all over the world may have their own characteristics and psychology,
3.2 Religious and Customary Difference
Religion has placed a lasting influence through human history. The influence of religious and customary differences is quite common. For every country or ethnic has its own particular culture with others. And Xinjiang has47nationalities and enjoys the honor of “national window”. It is one of the frontier provinces or autonomous regions with the richest national folkways and local taste,
And most people in Xinjiang are Islam,have the tradition of eating Muslim food. If we hoped that the men and we have the basic same emotion experiences, we may when the introduction joins Uyghur culture implication significance. In order to make west visitors realizes this; we’d better add some background information about it. Then the foreigners can understand the feeling of Chinese people better, without creating the unnecessary misunderstanding.
For example,
烤包子samsa or baked dumpling with stuffing’s of onion and minced lamb
肉囊Uyghur pizza
热瓦普rawap or plucked string instrument of Uyghur people
艾德莱斯the Atles silk popular material for dress and skirts among Uyghur women ,is a distinctive product rich in national feature in Xinjiang, the pattern of
it are said to reflect the religious sense of the ancient people who believe in shamanism and worship the deities of threes and water, another saying goes that
is the patterns of almond and comb as well as deformed national musical instruments.
You can consider something exist in the target culture as a bridge to achieve foreigners understand, and explanation it from its own tradition and culture.
3.3 Different Ethnic and Value Difference
As we know, westerns and Chinese have different moral standards or conduct principles. And let foreign tourists understand this phenomenon is not easy.
For the nationalities with Islamic faith in Xinjiang, the most important traditional festival are korban festival, the people in ethnic minorities prepare a variety of food ,dress in their best and call at one another to show greeting,
3.4 Aesthetical standard Difference
The aesthetic idea of people is influenced by geographical environment and social environment as well as political, economic and ethnic, value. They have different ideas of wearing and aesthetical standard.
Uyghur has their own aesthetical standard, Uygur’s embroidery hat marks Uyghur people, which Uygur, men or women and old or young like to wear.
In the contrary, Hui males usually wear small white cap and pants, white shirt and black vest. And women usually like to wear in red or silk headdresses and adorned with bracelets, earrings rings.
In Xinjiang, especially southern Xinjiang minorities prefer dressing in silk –woven casuist, whose pattern looks like floating colorful cloud, either blackish white or reddish green.
So, we can see that aesthetical standard is vary from nation to nation,
4The Translation of the Tourist Materials and the Approaches Every language has its own special methods of combining word, clause and sentence together. It is known to us that there have lots of differences in language at linguistic and cultural level which is easy to lead to mistranslation. Therefore, when translating Chinese into English, we should adopt some effective translation approaches to reduce mistranslations.
4.1 Annotation
Annotation refers to give explanations to same words or idioms used in tourism texts. In a sense, annotation is one form of amplification, not in terms of cultural background information, but the equivalent meaning of the lexemes as shown in the example
what is 《玛纳斯》? You can explained Manasis a hero epics of Kirgiz and one of the three epics in China, protagonist are usually extraordinarily strong and steel-willed heroes who accomplish immortal deeds by leading people to stand up
to fierce enemies and giving their own life for the interest of the people. Since they are deeply admired and loved..
What is bazaar? In Uyghur language ,the word bazaar means marker, going
to market is popular in south Xinjiang where Uyghur people live in homogenous community, at bazaar, everything is available, ranging extremely applicable but also decorative for interior decoration,
4.2 Adding
Adding is different with explanation, which is not to explain the literal meaning of the words, phrase, or sentence, but add more background information about the material for better understanding. For example, sometimes the translator has to add some background information about the leading personage, persons in literature, dynasties, historic events, or literary quotations etc. which are often mentioned or referred to in the tourist materials. If the westerners can not get enough background knowledge, it is impossible or very difficult for them to understand.
For example:
Hami is located in the center of the Hami Oasis, the biggest oasis in eastern Xinjiang. It boasts of a history that can be traced back to the Han Dynasty. Hami was then known as Yiwulu, and later named Yizhou in the Tang Dynasty. It was established as sub-prefecture during the region of Emperor Qianlong and later became a county after Xinjiang had become a province during the region of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty. Hami is also the home of the honeydew melons. Legend has it that the king of the Hami Kingdom decreed his subjects to cultivate a new variety of honeydew melons as a tribute to the emperor of Qing Court by allotting melon fields on the little south lake-shore for cultivating honey melons with dotted lines, durable in storage and shipment, thus being given the name Hami melon.
In this paragraph the translator add some background information about the leading personage, persons in literature, dynasties, historic events to introduce Hami melon clearly,
4.4Analogy
Analogy is often used in tourism English translation to make the English version
easier to be understood and accepted by foreign tourists. As mentioned before, Chinese culture is so different from western culture in many aspects that it is sometimes hard to be understood by foreigners. if it is translated literally. The translation will certainly confuse the foreign visitors. In this case, analogy can be adopted to make a comparison between two things or events which belong to different culture but are considered to be common nature.
For example
红山can translate he red hill instead of the HongsHan hill or the Hong hill.
天池translate it to the heavenly lake instead of the Tianchi lake or the heaven pool
水磨沟water mill gulley
Analogy here concerns more about the culture of the target language. Therefore, the translator should have a good command of the culture background of both languages, Chinese and English, when they try to employ analogy in tourism English translation.
5 conclusions
Now, more and more people understand Xinjiang tourism culture through understanding Xinjiang culture from all over the world. Xinjiang tourism materials have their own distinguishing features. Therefore, we should make sure that our translator and guides know how to use language as a bridge to spread culture and heritage its history.Cultural transmission in tourist materials translation with Xinjiang characterizes is not easy, because most Han are not familiar with ethnic culture in Xinjiang, such as their festival their cloth their custom and religions, so as both Chinese and excellent translator, we should grasp their cultural information since culture is the soul of tourism. In writing the tourism publicity materials, we should take the cultural background of the scenic spot into account. We can focus on the aspects below: (a) the diet culture characteristics. (b) The folk customs. (c) Religious culture characteristics. (d) The poetry and the antithetical couplet reference. (4) To make the materials more attractive and readable, it always contains many poses and poetry which are written by some famous ancient people.
During translating tourism materials, we need to use the right method. By improving our cultural awareness, we can improve translation level, avoiding frequent tourism English translation errors; finally, we can promote Xinjiang tourism and culture forward.
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