[Abstract] Tourism of Yunnan is well developing in recent years, and tourist guide who was regarded as the soul of it, still needs to be promoted in guiding whatever in the guiding speech or their practical skills. Taking English tourist guides in Yunnan for example, since this is a land with rich resources including the colorful minority cultures and superb landscapes. That is to say when they communicate with foreign guests they are playing the important roles of being translator and culture transferor. This thesis explores the relationship between translation and culture-exchange and the ways should be applied by the English tourist guides to be a qualified one.
　　[Key words] translationcultural exchangerelationshipEnglish Tourist Guide
　　
　　1. Introduction
　　As is known that, tourism is becoming one of the key industries in Yunnan province. This is a land with mysterious cultures and customs. Here you will see lofty and magnificent mountains, mighty rivers, picturesque and beautiful scenic spots, especially the fantastically rich and colorful cultures and customs. However, tourist guides a service also known as the “soul “of tourism, still need to cope with the development of tourism industry. For the English tourist guide it is their task to serve as excellent ambassador in the process of communicating with foreign tourist. This is also a process of translating or interpreting our cultures from Chinese to English. So being the translator and culture transferor they should have the capability to transfer cultures of different countries through translation.
　　2. Roles of English Tourist Guide in Yunnan
　　2.1 Brief introduction to tourism and tourists
　　Human beings are curious about the world which we live. They are eager to know what other places—what the people, their cultures, the animals and plant life, and landforms may be else where. Today with the mass media communication and the material prosperity, human beings are traveling from one place to another. Concerning with the subject of travel, it is really exciting and fascinating that tourism becomes a key industry all over the world. And we are becoming more and more globally whatever in the science, technology, industry or culture-exchange. But what is tourism? Tourism can be defined ad the sum of phenomena and relationship arising from the interaction of tourist, business suppliers, host governments and the host communities in the attracting and host these tourists and other visitors. Briefly to say, tourism includes the activities, services and industries. In the travel experience it consists of eating, drinking, and transportation, and accommodation, entertainment, shopping and sight-seeing. Tourist guide also enjoys the reputation the “soul” of tourism. They are responsible for giving guiding speech on the scenic spots, arranging the whole trip orderly, tackling the emergency, creating an active environment as well as transferring our cultures. They are the folk ambassadors.
　　2.2 Roles of English guide
　　In Yunnan there are favorable and unique mystery tourist resources. This is not only a land which is known for the beauty of its nature, but also the beauty of humanity. 20 minority groups have lived here through ages, all of which have developed their own various cultures and customs. And each has its unique charming and beauty. These cultures and customs are embodied in the histories, languages, writing systems, literature, costumes, music, dance, art, festival celebrations and so on. Besides, Yunnan’s special location also made Yunnan a bridge between the Southeast Asia and south Asia countries, thus enjoy the reputation of “an intersection point between the culture of the Central plains of China, the culture of Tibet, the cultures of Southeast Asia and the culture of the west. That is to say, tourist guide should serve as the organizer, performer, addresser, culture transferor, and folk ambassador. They are playing the roles being translator as well as culture-exchanger.
　　3. Features of culture and translation in the process of guiding
　　3.1 Features of culture
　　3.1.1 Definitions and connotations of culture
　　What is culture? According to data, there are various definitions and connotations on culture. Culture does exist for a long time in the history, especially in China and German. According to Kluckhohn, culture refers to all the way of life created in human history, including the explicit and implicit, the reasonable and unreasonable and everything far from being reasonable and unreasonable. While someone holds that it is the product and result of human activity. In the words of our time, “wenhua” refers to the sum total of social science and natural science. What’s more, from the angle of the function of culture, some scholar points out that culture is the customs of human body and soul, including a set of instruments and a series of customs, and they satisfy the needs of the human beings directly or indirectly Culture is a complicated concept.
　　3.1.2 Transferring cultures
　　To further discussion, concerning with culture of tourism, it is a newly developing industry of culture, which emphasized by governments of various countries. It deals with many aspects, including customs, traditional culture, people’s sayings, cultural products, places of interest, etc. For the tourist guide the core issue is to transfer culture. It is them who are introducing and absorbing traditional culture and modern civilization of other countries unconsciously. From the guide’s wonderful speeches, tourists received enjoyment of knowledge, of interest and the beauty. Therefore, tourist guide are playing the role of communicating and transferring cultures. For example:
　　When English tourist guides in Yunnan introduces the minority marriage customs, making comparisons is an efficient way. Taking the Mosuo’s A Xia Marriage(走婚)and the Sani’s Robbing Marriage(搶婚) for example: We can do it in the following way. As in Yunnan, 25 minority nationalities are living here, and each have a population of more than 5000. Among them, fifteen are natives of Yunnan, like the Bai, Hani, Dai, Wa, Naxi and so on. It is really a land of rich cultures. After this brief guidance to the Yunnan’s nationality background knowledge, it will arouse the interest of tourists. The next is to introduce or interpret it in details, otherwise tourist may feel puzzled. Because they are not familiar with local culture .The following thing is to introduce and make a comparison between the two kinds of marriage system.
　　What is Robbing Marriage after all? It is an interesting custom of Sani people, who is one branch of Yi Nationality and mainly lives in the Stone Forest. Sani girls are too shy to speak out:” I love you; I am willing to marry you. ” The bridegroom has to “rob” the bride. On the wedding ceremony the bridegroom’s relatives must form a team between six and twelve to rob the bride. They carry baskets of rice, meat, wine and vegetables to the bride’s village. No matter how far it is, they couldn’t shift their shoulders. Arriving at the bride’s gate, the relatives splash cool water on them and present some difficulties before being allowed to enter. At the same time a crowd of young women and men will suddenly rush out and smear their faces with black greasepaint to test whether they have a good temper. Then they will have a dinner and entertain themselves by giving performance, like dancing, singing, wresting. On the way back, they still have to carry baskets of stones. They can not put it down until beyond the bride’s relatives’ eyes. Otherwise the bridegroom will be looked upon. And what is A Xia marriage? It is a custom carried by Mosuo people living around Lugu Lake in Lijiang, who is a branch of Naxi Nationality. Mosuo people have peculiar customs and ways of living, up to now still remaining remnants of matriarchal society. Men and women do not get married, each living at their mother’s home respectively. But they keep imitate relationship for a certain period, in which they reciprocate “tokens” and go dating in the evening, this is what A Xia relationship, after that they call each other “Azhu” which means “dear companion”, but never get wife or husband. Therefore, Children are brought up by their maternal uncles. The female is predominant and is the leader of a family. And hence the Lugu Lake area enjoy the reputation “The Females Kingdom” in the world, and“a living fossil of matriarchal society hard to come by.”
　　So in the process of guiding foreigners, English tourist guide can promote cultural exchange, they serve as the culture transfer from Chinese to English. It requires conveying as many culture messages as possible. Besides, we should try our best to avoid misunderstanding, replacing, missing of the cultural message of the source language. Sometimes we can add some of the cultural message. Just as the examples I have given before. If we want to transfer more minority custom to the foreign guests, we could explain or interpret it more and more, that is to say interpreting where necessary. In order to achieve the effectiveness of the transfer of cultural message we do have a lot to explain, because this is such a mysterious place for the tourists. It is our task to help them appreciate our cultures and accomplish the important task of cultural exchange.
　　3.2 Features of translation
　　3.2.1 Definitions on translation
　　According English dictionary, translation is the process of written of spoken rendering of a word, speech, book or other text in other language. But in the practical society, different people have different opinions. In the famous English linguist Geoffrey leech’s book Semantics, he pointed out that translation is to find a way to express the sense of a word in another language. Chairman of ITA(國际译联), professor Anna Lenowa said in the book The Theoretical Essentials of General Translation(1985), “As a process, translation is a spoken or written activity, with the purpose of making the spoken or written speech existing in a language reappear in another language and keeping the invariance if the contents and quality of the original text and the correctness of the original author”. And another famous American translation theorist, Eugene A.Nida, she believes that the translation in the target language refers to reproducing the information of original text by using the closest and the most natural equivalence.
　　Hence the essence of translation is a cross-language transformational activity. To discuss translation from the angle of culture, it is an activity of cross-cultural exchange. What’s more, as far as the function is concerned, translation is the tie and bridge by using the language as a tool to link different cultures. That is to say, in translation (interpreting or written translation), we should not only follow the basic principles of translation, but also try to grasp its spiritual essence and culture essence. Concerning with the English tourist guides, we should work as qualified translator as well as cultural ambassador.
　　3.2.2 Translating some sayings about the place
　　Guides also should do the translation job; they do not only need to be proficient in the practical skills, but also the proficiency in target language. They should make a deep study of culture of tourism and the related translation. One more important is that what kind of way they will use according to the similarities and differences in culture. As an English tourist guides who engages in translation of this aspect, he or she must know as much as possible. For example, you must know famous sayings about famous place, when a person comes to the Dali scenic region; you can tell this person that Dali is “ Land of letters”(文獻之邦), which also enjoy the reputation of “Buddhism Kingdom”,the Essence Kingdom”(佛国,妙香国). When it comes to Xishuangbanna scenic region, to begin with, what does it mean? In the ancient times, Xi means twelve; Shuang means one thousand pieces of land, hence Xishuangbanna means twelve thousand pieces of land under administration. Meanwhile, it also a land of “the Gene Centre of Plants and Animals”, “Nature Zoo”, “the Gene Tank of Plants and Animals”,” a Green Gem on the Tropic of Cancer”. As Xishuangbanna is situated at the Meikong River, and here, we can make a easy explanation. Meikong River also enjoy the reputation” the Oriented Danube in Asia” From the above statements, we can see that as an English tourist guide in Yunnan , we must be proficient in translating some famous sayings about some places in order to give the tourists a deeper impression..
　　3.2.3 How to translate names of Chinese dishes
　　Chinese dishes are quite popular with the western people, when they come to china, they like Chinese food, including delicious dishes as well as visiting places of interest. In fact it is not easy to translate the Chinese dishes, which deals with the culture of food and drink. The reason why the Chinese dishes taste delicious and are liked by the westernpeople is that they are made in many ways, such as quick-frying (爆炒), stir-frying(炒), deep-frying(炸), pan-frying(煎), baking/broiling(烘/烤), braising(烧), simmering/stewing(炖/煨), steaming(蒸), boiling, etc. Usually speaking, when they translate the Chinese dishes, they do them according to these forms:
　　1.cooking method + the main cooked sthuff: 黄焖干鲍 stewed abalone; 清蒸鱼 steamed fish; 红烧划水 braised carp fish tail; 脆皮桂鱼 barbecued mandarin; 熏鲤鱼 smoked carp, etc;
　　2.cooking method + the main cooked stuff + in/with + the name if sauce:紅烧鲍鱼 fresh abalone with brown sauce; 红烧紫鲍 braised abalone garnished with green vegetable; 松子鲜鲈鱼 perch steamed with pine nuts;醋椒活鱼 fresh fish in chilly and vinegar, etc;
　　3.the cooking method + the main cooked stuff +with/in + names of sauce: 糟鱼汁炖鱼 stewed fish with anchovy; 韭黄吵黄丝 sautéed eel shreds with leek shoots; 红油虾片 prawn alices in red sauce, etc;
　　The above are the basic translating methods, and in translating other dishesthe translators can use the other ones to translate different ones, for example, we cantranslate”三鲜汤” into “soup with fish, shrimp and pork balls”. In which, two methods are used, literal translation and free translation
　　4. Relationship between translation and culture-exchange
　　4.1 Language, culture and translation
　　Chinese and English cultures are quite different from each other whatever in language or expression. Different languages have different cultures. Chinese and English are the carrier and container of the two cultures. There would be no language if there were no culture. That is say culture is the soil of the existence of language. However, in human being’s communication cultures are spread, exchanged, continued and developed. All of these are just carried by language. In cultural exchange translation came in being. And both culture and language should be taken into consideration. Therefore, in translation it is an important issue to understand and handle the relationship between culture and language. We can’t separate the contents of translation from culture. It is culture which can bring positive roles and influence to translation activity. Translation also means imitating the culture of source language. It is the translator’s task to set up a bridge of communication for the people of the two cultures. Through translation we can make the foreign cultures become familiar to us.
　　4.2 Responsibilities for translating and transferring cultures
　　It has been so clear that for the tourist guide in Yunnan, they serve as translators and culture transferors. To say from the translator’s role, to interpret it from Chinese to English in the process of guiding; it is also a process of intercultural communication.
　　In the process of intercultural exchange, we can understand, absorb, and introduce the cultures of different countries. Meanwhile we can make comparisons unconsciously or consciously. As translation is a most important kind of communicating with foreigners while cultural exchange mostly depends on intercultural communication? Briefly speaking, translation plays an important part in cultural exchange. Since the two aspects have something to do with each other, what are the values of translation in cultural exchange?
　　Firstly, translation is the most important way for cultural exchange. Even there are different ways of cultural exchange; I think translation is the most essential one. As it is not only a tool for intercultural communication, but also breaks through barriers. It has been regarded as a “short-cut” in learning from other countries. Take the English tourist guide for example; it is their task to transfer our cultures by giving guiding speech. From the guiding speech given by guides, foreign tourists learnt Yunnan’s history, economy, minority customs as well as other aspects. Hence the tourists’ roles of being translators and cultural transferors are of mutually beneficial activity. Secondly, being the role of translator. it is them who transfer cultures through translation, including the material aspect and the spiritual aspect. Through the guides’ successful introduction and behaviors, tourists get a good impression about that place. They can share the local splendor of culture.
　　5. Conclusion:
　　As I referred in this thesis what are the roles of English tourist guide in Yunnan, and what are the relationships between culture and translation. T English tourist guides in Yunnan do not only serve the travelers in entertainment, eating, drinking, accommodations, transportation, guiding, but also translation and culture exchange. They need to be proficient in target language as well as local attractions and cultures in the purpose of giving an excellent guiding speech. It is an efficient way to transfer culture. Especially, being the roles of translator and culture exchanger, they should realize that what is the effect is of translation on cultural exchange, how to transfer culture through translation. So English guide should have the capability of applying the right way to communicate with foreign tourists.
　　References:
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