The Errors and Solutions on C-E Translation of Environmental Protection-Related Signs Guided by Functional Equivalence

Abstract

With the growing concern about the environment protection, environmental protection-related signs are ubiquitous in China now. This paper first introduces the relevant concepts about functional equivalence, analyzes the errors and mistakes in Chinese-English translation of environmental protection-related signs and proposes some feasible solutions. Common errors in translations in question include linguistic errors, cultural errors and pragmatic errors which generally result from cultural discrepancy, the translators’ incompetence and the initiators’ carelessness. Some solutions like lexicon equivalence, semantic equivalence, syntax equivalence, discourse equivalence are proposed to solve these problems.