Addressing Translation Issues as Intercultural Communication Barriers in Tourism: Language, Culture, and Communication at Play

Abstract

This chapter examines Chinese-English translation issues that cause intercultural communication misunderstanding in the tourism language. As international tourists are travelling around China, Chinese-English translation services are useful. It plays an important role in facilitating the tourism business operations and meeting the tourist language needs. However, failure to understand cultural differences can result in intercultural communication failure in tourism discourse. The researcher critically analysed the English-Chinese translation issues using tourist information texts collected from a variety of written sources and examining them at cross-lingua-cultural communication level. Translation of tourist information texts from a source language to a target language is more than a linguistic transfer and involves linguistic restructure and cultural imaging re-creation that make sense in a target language and culture. Implications for addressing translation issues as intercultural communication barriers are discussed. Future research direction is also indicated in the conclusion.

Keywords: translation as intercultural communication, English-Chinese translation, tourism discourse, intercultural differences