摘 要

当前，随着我国国际化程度不断加深，越来越多的外国人选择来华学习、工作或是旅游。为了更好地展示我国开放的对外态度，建立、完善城市公共设施标示系统的要求越来越强烈，而与之相对的现实是我国目前尚缺乏一套完整的道路名称英译规范。

本文先概述了我国道路名称英译相关政策的历史沿革。进而针对目前我国在道路名称英译方面存在的标准不一的问题，从“析名”的方法入手，站在公共服务领域的视角上，对道路名称的组成部分进行拆解，分类翻译，从而达到规范化、模式化翻译道路名称的目的。

关键词：路名；英译；规范；公共服务

Contents

1. Introduction 1
2. Demonstration 2
   1. A review of English translation of road names 2
   2. Structural Classification of road names 3
   3. Translation methods for each component 4
      1. Translation of generic names 4
      2. Translation of trait components 5
      3. Translation of proper names 6
   4. The basic rules of English translation of road names 9
      1. “Proper name generic name” 9
      2. “Proper name trait components generic name” 9
      3. “Trait component generic name” 9
      4. Complex form 9
3. Conclusion 7

Bibliography 10

A Study of the English Translation of Road Names in Public Service Areas

Introduction

Nowadays, with the internationalization of China growing, more and more foreigners choose to come to China for sightseeing, work or study abroad. In order to facilitate their travel in China, it is urgent to establish and improve the urban public facilities signing system, especially the road English mark . In order to meet the actual needs of the public service sector, some cities in China have successively introduced a series of normative guidelines for the English translation of road names. However, at present, there is still a lack of standard road name translation norms in China, which is an urgent problem to be solved.

The domestic scholars' discussion on the English translation of road names mainly focuses on two aspects: one is to correct the mistakes in the translation of road names, and the other is to talk about the principle of translation of road names advocated by them.

However, whether it is correcting the mistake of the translation of the road name itself or proposing the principle of translation, both of them fails to fundamentally solve the problem of the translation of the road names. Without systematic translation rules, the norm cannot be discussed. For this, Xu Jian (2006) conducted a general research classification on the structure and basic components of Chinese names of public places, and then summed up the existing translations and potential norms of Chinese names through the structure of the names. However, he did not propose a systematic translation method, but the way to analyze the Chinese structure of the road name should be a clear way to propose translation specifications.

To sum up, what is lacking in the English translation of road names in China is a set of systematic norms. This article intends to, from reality, referring to Xu Jian’s (2006) method of analyzing road name structure, taking the name of foreign roads as

a guide, summarize a more systematic translation method.

Demonstration

• 1. History of English translation of road names

As a cultural form of external display, the spelling and the translation form of road names is of great political significance. The relevant departments in China have always attached great importance to this. At the Third United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names in 1977, the vote decided to use the place names spelled in Chinese Pinyin as the international standard for the translation of road names in China. In 1998, in the notice published by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, it is clearly stated that when local government place name signs, the spelling of Roman letters should be spelled in Chinese Pinyin, and no English or any other letters which undermines national dignity should be used.

In 2007, the Beijing Municipal Government and the Shanghai Municipal Government successively issued the General Rules for the English Translation of Bilingual Marks in Public Places and the Basic Rules for the English Translation of Road Names in Shanghai. Then in 2008, the Guangdong Provincial Government issued the Standard for the English Translation of Bilingual Marks in Public Places. All three documents require that the generic names of geographical names are usually translated directly in English, the initials of English words are capitalized, and the rest are lowercase. At the same time, these three documents also have certain provisions on the basic problems such as orientation words and ordinal numbers contained in the road names encountered in the actual translation of road names. In 2015, the Shanghai Geographical Names Management Office issued the Guidelines for the English Translation of Road Names in Shanghai on the basis of the Basic Rules for the English Translation of Road Names in Shanghai , which detailed the translation of road names in Shanghai. In 2014, the Guidelines for the Use of English in Public Service Areas was introduced. However, even such a national standard have failed to clarify the translation of road name specifications.