Translating the Culture-Specific Items in Chinese Tourism Publicity Materials into English: A Category-based Functional Approach

Abstract

With the full implementation of the policy of “Chinese Culture Going Global”, more attention has been paid to the English translation of Chinese tourism publicity materials. One of the major challenges that translators face is the English translation of a large number of Chinese culture-specific items (CSIs) contained in the publicity materials. There has been some discussion about the Chinese-English translation of CSIs in tourism publicity materials. However the previous studies are largely inadequate and unsystematic. In this paper, a category-based functional approach is taken to address the issue more systematically. It features a tripartite categorization of the Chinese CSIs in the tourism publicity materials of Nanjing Confucius Temple and a detailed analysis of their specific textual functions. Two general principles and three concrete methods are proposed to improve further the quality of translating the CSIs in tourism publicity materials.