On Chinese-English translation of culture-loaded tourism publicities: A perspective of cultural manipulation theory

Abstract

In recent years, there is a heated study of the translation of tourism materials from Chinese into English from a cultural perspective. A growing number of translation scholars begin to study the cultural communication and cultural interaction in the process of translating culture-loaded tourism publicities from Chinese into English. Learning under such a background and enlightened by the innovative thinking of the school of Translation Studies, the author makes a tentative study of the Chinese-English translation of culture-loaded tourism publicities by employing Lefevere's and Bassnett's cultural manipulation theory. Lefevere and Bassnett, the two most representative figures of the school of Translation Studies, view the study of translation as the study of cultural interaction, and the nature or the purpose of translation is to enable the source language culture and the target language culture to communicate and interact with each other. Cultural manipulation theory provides a different and new perspective for translation studies especially concerning translations which involve cultural communication and cultural interaction. This paper analyzes the cultural manipulative phenomena in the translation of cultural-loaded tourism publicities from Chinese into English intending to discuss whether or not the manipulations facilitate the communication and interaction between Chinese culture and foreign cultures. Through sample analyses, the author also summarizes some workable manipulative methods based on the cultural manipulation theory and on the previous studies in this field. © 2012 ACADEMY PUBLISHER Manufactured in Finland.