Abstract:English tour commentaries play a vital role in China’s booming tourist industry, attracting foreign visitors and spreading our splendid culture. Few studies have concentrated on the translation of a specific type of tour commentaries, though many studies have focused on the translation of tour commentaries in general. Under the guidance of the Relevance Theory, this paper undertakes analyses of examples from pre-translated tour commentaries with the aim that problems might be identified in C-E translation of such commentaries. Then the paper proceeds to suggest the strategies of amplification, generalization and analogy, which help guarantee the maximum cognitive effects with the minimum processing efforts on the part of foreign visitors. We hope this paper will shed new light on C-E translation strategies of pre-translated tour commentaries and help improve their translation quality.

Key words: C-E translation strategies; Relevance Theory; optimal relevance; pre-translated tour commentaries

Contents

Abstract

中文摘要

1. Introduction-1

1.1 Rationale-1

1.2 Objectives-1

1.3 Organization of the paper-2

2. Literature Review-3

2.1 Previous studies of the Relevance Theory-3

2.2 Previous studies of C-E translation of tour commentaries-3

3. The Relevance Theory-5

3.1 Cognitive environment and context-5

3.2 Contextual effects and processing efforts-5

3.3 Principles of relevance and optimal relevance-6

4. An Overview of Tour Commentaries-8

4.1 Classification of tour commentaries-8

4.2 Textual features of tour commentaries-8

4.3 C-E translation characteristics of tour commentaries-8

5. Chinese into English Translation Strategies of Pre-translated Tour Commentaries under the Guidance of the RelevanceTheory-10

5.1 Significance of applying the Relevance Theory to the translation of pre-translated tour commentaries-10

5.2 Proposed strategies guided by the Relevance Theory-11

5.2.1 Amplification-11

5.2.2 Generalizaiton-12

5.2.3 Analogy-13

5.3 Summary-15

6. Conclusion-16

6.1 Major findings-16

6.2 Limitations and suggestions-16

References-18

Acknowledgements-19