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With long history and abundant culture, Guangzhou gradually becomes one of the main travel destinations in China for many tourists, especially after successfully holding 2010 Asian Games. Besides, Guangzhou held other important events such as Guangzhou International Art Fair and Xinghai International Choral Festival.
Apart from businessmen and visitors, Guangzhou also appeals a large number of foreign students to China for academic studying. Guangzhou is also advanced in higher education, possessing many higher institutions such as Sun Yat-sen University, South China University of Technology and Jinan University, among which Jinan University is called first overseas college in China.
Meanwhile, as an international language, English plays a paramount role in communication. Public signs not only convey the most direct and effective information for visitors, but also are closely connected with the image of a city. In daily life, however, mistakes in translation can be found almost everywhere.
This paper discusses characteristics and categories of public signs translation, presenting examples of inappropriate or wrong translation of public signs in Guangzhou. The research mainly focuses on the translations in parks, scenic spots and subway station of Guangzhou. Moreover, this paper explores principles and methods in the practice of public signs translation.
2. Characteristics and Categories of public signs translation
Public signs namely are the signs that notify, warn and alarm people in public places. In form of words or pictures or both of them, they tell people some relevant information, tips and rules, which aim to guide people’s conductions. Public signs are widely used in our daily lives, involving accommodation, transportation, entertainment, travelling and so on. Public signs can be seen in billboard, slogan, signs, and advertisement.
2.1 Characteristics of public signs translation
Characteristics of public signs translation mainly lie in the wording, tense and sentence pattern.
2.1.1 Wording
Most public signs translation use nouns, verbs, phrases and abbreviations. Sometimes they omit the subject, predicate, object and linking verb. Some public signs translation that express static meaning widely use nouns, which can provide direct and specific information, such as “Information（服务咨询）” and “Food & Beverage（餐饮部）”. Besides, some public signs translation that express dynamic meaning often use verbs or gerunds in order to attract people’s attention on requests, response and the actions to be taken, such as “No smoking （请勿吸烟）” and “Duty free（免税店）” are also applied in public signs. In many public places, public signs translation is abbreviations like “WC”, “ATM” and “P”.
Given that public signs are open to the public and stands for the image of a country, wording of translation should be concise and precise. On the one hand, most public signs aim to convey instant service information, so the wording of translation is short and simple, which means that diction of public signs translation is concise. On the other hand, the target readers of public sign are people of various age, genders, races and degree of education, so wording of public signs translation must be precise with standard vocabulary but avoid slangs or dialects.
2.1.2 Present tense
Public signs give indication, guides and alarms to people’s real actions, so most of their translations are in present tense. For examples, “Keep dry（保持干燥）”, “ Please keep your personal belongings with you all the time (重要物品请随身携带) ”.
2.1.3 Imperative sentence
Due to the fact that most people going outside for business, work or travelling are in a hush, imperative sentences are widely used in translations. Examples are as following: “ Don’t hold doors（请勿扶门）”and “ Beware of pickpockets（小心扒手）”.