Introduction to Chengde Tourism Culture Translation Project Management

Lian+Yong

【Abstract】This thesis focusing on introducing the general background of Chengde tourism culture text translation and Trados and Excel based Translation Project Management strategy.

【Key words】Tourism Culture； Project Management

Introduction

Because of the increasingly internationalized domestic tourism cultural reconstruction， especially under the trend of integration of the beijing-tianjin-hebei region， Chengde City is exposing to the world and its culture is becoming known to the foreigners faster and faster， simultaneously， there are more and more of the world culture beginning to enrich the profoundness of Chengde tourism resources. Therefore， “translation” as a bridge of cultures is becoming more and more indispensable. There are many translators doing the job of the culture bridging in Chengde city at present， however， less multivariate communicating ，fragmented translation jobs and scattered distribution of the translators， make the Citys tourism culture-related translation difficult to meet the frequent cultural exchanges and the heavy workload of producing more and more trans-cultural and inter-cultural works. This article， by taking Chengde local tourism resources as an example， discusses how to realize the intensified process management of local-tourism-culture-Chinese-English-translation projects and how to establish quality local-tourism-culture-Chinese-English corpus efficiently and effectively， so as to improve the efficiency of the translation work， making the culture known to the world and popular with the foreigners.

1. The characteristics of tourism translation

Tourism translation is an inter-linguistic， cross-social， cross- time and space， cross-cultural and cross-psychological communicative activity （Lv Hefa， 2008）， which is of great interest， but theoretical and practical with its particularity. The interest lies in its deep cultural background， close contacts to the inspiring reality， tourists-oriented practicability， thought-provoking ideological contents， practical pertinence to different purposes， normativeness of each word， phrase， sentence， paragraph and passage， artistic expression， and flexibility of variety （wang Jun， 2008）；the theoretical property rests with its numerous theoretical schools with various theories in great abundance such as the widely cognitive German Functionalist theory in tourism translation， Nidas Translation Standard， Newmarks translation Text and Methods theory etc.； the practicability is in its human-oriented perspective， from which the quality of translation should be improved through continuous communicating and error correcting； The particularity intensively lies in its rich and colorful tourist texts， such as The Guide， Advertising Materials， Manual， Warnings， Tour Guide Presentation and so on， the Audiences and the readers and listeners of which are from different cultures of different places all over the world.

2. The current study of Chengde mountain resort and surrounding temples Chinese-English tourist text translation

We have made systematical and comprehensive studies on the logos， the names of scenic spots and the English versions of the Attractions. （SZ2010859 Youth Fund Projects of Department of Education in Hebei Province） We analyzed the errors of the syntax， semantics and pragmatics of the text materials respectively in 2006， 2007 and 2011， and the results were published in the Journal of Chengde Petroleum College.

From the result we can see that in the translations of each scenic spot of the famous 72-attractions exist errors， within which， in total， at least， there are 304 spelling mistakes， 163 grammatical misuses， 256 semantic vague nesses， 412 pragmatic errors. We also provide some suggestions on how to improve some typical examples of translation failures by following some concluded principles. However， translations of the valuable culture-specific tourism materials are much more than that， and we are shortage of hands of translators. The trend of integration of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region gives Chengde the perfect time to embrace the world and develop. So does the other parts of China. To let the world know us， understand us and be friends with us and to avoid ignorance， misunderstanding and even hatred， translators and their translations play a vital part. We need more translators from every corner of China and of the world to achieve the exchange of cultures and cultivations correctly， clearly， efficiently and effectively as soon as possible in the era of” Internet plus”.

3. The Advantages of SDL Trados Studio

According to a 2006 survey undertaken by Imperial College of 874 translation professionals from 54 countries， primary tool usage was reported as follows： Trados （35%）， Wordfast （17%）， Déjà Vu （16%）， SDL Trados 2006 （15%）， SDLX （4%）， STAR Transit （3%）， OmegaT （3%）， others （7%）.

The recent statistic shows that SDL Trados takes up more than 70% of the Computer Assisted Translation （CAT） Market， and owns more than 200，000 customers， within which there are 40，000 enterprise customers， including more than 90% of the Globe Top 500 enterprises. By using SDL Trados Studio portfolios， Translation work efficiency has increased by from 30% to 80%， and the cost reduced by from 30% to 60 %.（ http：//baike.baidu.com/view/650311.htm）

Compared with the four popular CAT software， Déjà Vu， Wordfast， and 雅信CAT on the basis of functionality， usability， uniqueness and defects，SDL Trados Studio is the best choice of dealing with the quality standardized localized translation projects for the translation professionals in big organizations because of its all-round functions and customized services， but its time and energy consuming for the individual translators to access and operate.（Zhu Yubing， 2013）

To meet the needs of more and more professionalized Chengde local tourism translation projects， a powerful， accessible and professional CAT software is indispensable. Accordingly， SDL Trados Studio is obviously the best choice if its shortcoming of hard accessibility is overcame.

4. Concrete implementation plan of Trados-based Chengde tourism culture translation project management

The translation project is made up of 6 teams： project management team， materials collection team， typing team， TM team， translating team and revising team.

1） Project management team has 1 to 3 members who are Trados master-hands， responsible for managing the whole project by importing the originals into Trados， operating automatic translating engine， exporting bilingual MS Excel files， assigning translating tasks， transforming the Excel corpus from TM team into TMX， importing the after-translating-and-revising-in-Excel hammered translations into SDL Trados Studio， adjusting and exporting the final customized translations.

2） Material collection team members have the ability of information collecting， processing and sorting， who are responsible for collecting Chengde cultural originals in Chinese and/or bilingual ones of e-version and/or the print edition， sorting， submitting the Chinese e-originals to the project management team， the print originals and bilingual versions to the typing team and e-bilingual versions to the TM team.

3） Typing team members are required to be qualified typists responsible for typing all materials from the other teams into computer.

4） TM team members should be qualified junior translators， who are responsible for aligning the bilingual e-materials from the project management team， the material collection team and the typing team.

5） Translating team members are required to be qualified Intermediate or senior translators， who are responsible for translating the assigned Chinese originals from the project management team and revising their translations according to the comments from the revising team until receiving the PASS NOTICE.

6） Revising team members should be senior translators， who are responsible for revising the translations from the translating team， giving comments and sending PASS NOTICE to the translating team.

References：

[1]Lv Hefa（2008）.Tourism Translation：Definition，Position and Criterion.Shanghai Journal of Translators.2008，NO.1.

[2]Wang Jun（2008）.Tourism English's Feature and the choice of translating methods.Foreign Language Research.2008，No 5.

[3]Zhu Yubing（2013）.Research on 4 popular CAT Soft Wares.Computer-Assisted Foreign Language Education.2013，NO 1.

作者簡介：廉勇（1980-），承德石油高等专科学校英语教师，中国科学技术大学硕士研究生，从事英语翻译、教学与研究工作。