2.2 Features of Source Text
Narratives About South Lake compiled by Changshu Yushan Shanghu Tourist Resort (Yushan Street) is a tourism publicity text, the excerpt of which describes the ecological restoration project of the South Lake Wetland and the local scenery. Both Chinese and English tourism publicity texts aim to describe the natural scenery and convey cultural information of tourist destinations to potential tourists so that tourists can appreciate the beauty of nature and culture. Besides, readers can be attracted to visit the tourist attractions mentioned in these texts (Rong, 2010: 363). It was concluded from the analysis that the source text has the following three features:
First, the source text has informative and vocative functions (Xiao, 2010: 40). The simple language objectively describes the ecological restoration process and the scenery of the South Lake Wetland, reflecting the informative function of publicity texts. Besides, some flowery words and sentences set off emotional effects, revealing the vocative function of publicity texts.
Second, the source text shows Chinese characteristics, which are obviously reflected in the use of different kinds of words (Mo, 2020: 91). The source text which narrates the ecological restoration project of the South Lake Wetland and the local scenery contains a lot of ancient Chinese vocabulary, four-character structures, culture-loaded words, scenic spot names, and color terms, displaying distinctive Chinese characteristics. Therefore, given the history, culture, and context embodied by the words with Chinese characteristics, it is particularly important to properly translate these words (Zhu, 2019: 117).
Chapter Three Case Analysis .............................11
3.1 Translation of Four-character Structures..............................11
3.1.1 Omission ..........................12
3.1.2 Conversion ......................14
3.1.3 Literal Translation ................15
Conclusion ...........................28
Chapter Three Case Analysis
3.1 Translation of Four-character Structures
There are lots of four-character structures in Chinese, making Chinese quite different from other languages. Four-character structures are visually neat, acoustically metrical, and structurally concise, representing the essences of the expressions (Wang and Zhang, 2021: 383). They are frequently used in tourism publicity texts, manifesting the feature of the Chinese language. Some four-character structures in the source text are flowery words, which set off emotional effects and give full play to the vocative function of publicity texts. Generally, four-character structures have three rhetorical features: various metaphors (for example, “大地如洗”), vivid images (for example, “琳琅满目”), and distinct antitheses (for example, “攻坚克难”). In the C-E translation of four-character structures, translation methods such as omission, conversion, and literal translation were applied.
3.1.1 Omission
Omission refers to a technique through which the translator intentionally omits some words or elements of the source text during translation. The reason for omission is that although some parts are omitted, their meanings are demonstrated in the context. Omission makes the translation concise, fluent, understandable, and in line with the English idiomaticity without violating the principle of faithfulness (Li, 2021: 82). Considering the differences in writing styles between Chinese and English texts, omission was employed in the translation of some four-character structures to make the target text succinct.
Conclusion
In the C-E translation practice of this tourism publicity text, conclusions were drawn as follows: (1)
