Multimodal representation and translation of the official UK tourism website into Chinese

This thesis investigates the online multimodal representation of tourism destinations, and examines how these representations are communicated in a different locale through translation and localisation processes. It takes the official UK tourism website VisitBritain as a case study. Visual and textual data collected from both English and Chinese editions of VisitBritain are analysed to investigate how multiple modes on tourism destination websites combine and interact in communicating meanings and shaping the destination image. The qualitative approach of multimodal discourse analysis is employed to elucidate the organisational dynamics of visual elements (layout, hyperlinks, typography, colour, photographs) in conveying ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings. A quantitative corpus-based analysis is adopted to identify the content and linguistic style of the textual data. Additionally, sampled sentence pairs from the source text and its translated version are compared to uncover the translation and localisation strategies employed by VisitBritain. The findings reveal that VisitBritain, whether in English or Chinese, integrates multiple modes that complement one another and enable a broad understanding of the UK destinations. Comparative analysis indicates that the Chinese edition aligns closely with the English edition, incorporating minor adaptations in content and linguistic style tailored to the interests and preferences of Chinese recipients, while effectively preserving the unique and recognisable image of the UK as a tourist destination. The thesis then goes on to argue that because web texts are multimodal, the traditional rule of ‘translation equivalence’ needs to move beyond words, towards a more comprehensive understanding of the multimodal synergy in terms of ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions. Translation is effective when the target text, as a multimodal whole, resonates with the target audience. Localisation is essential to improve readability and usability. However, we argue that localisation needs to be used cautiously to avoid detrimental loss of exoticism and cultural uniqueness, which are the attractive pulling factors enhancing travel motivation of international tourists.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

dprof

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Wales Trinity Saint David

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Chen, Xiao

• GV Hamdden Adloniant
• PE Saesneg

Dc Identifier Grantnumber

UWTSD

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.uwtsd.ac.uk:3035