Transletters. International Journal of Translation and Interpreting 7 Vol. 1 (2023), pp. 35-56 ISSN 2605-2954

Special Issue New Trends in the Theory and Practice of Translation and Interpreting

Tourism Translation in the Light of Eco-Translatology and

Existing Translation Theories

Mingshu Liu

Autonomous University of Barcelona

The aim of this paper is to introduce the concept of Eco-Translatology raised by

Gengshen Hu (2013) and reveal its relationship with the following translation theories:

Michael Cronin’s (2017) eco-translation, the Polysystem theory developed by Even-

Zohar (1979/1990) and Toury (1995), contextual dimensions proposed by Hatim and

Mason (1990), and functional approaches studied by Reiss & Vermeer (1984) and

Christiane Nord (1991/2005). These different approaches are then adopted to analyze

Spain's official tourism website for Cordoba in the Spanish language and its translation

into Chinese. Through comparison, we find that despite the similarities, the main

difference between Hu and other Western translation theories is the object of study.

For Hu, it is the translator, and for the analyzed Western scholars, it is the translated

Together with the awakening of ecological awareness and the construction of

ecological civilizations, the ecological perspective has gradually entered the

world of academic research. “Ecological notions have been incorporated into

ecological approaches, and in this article, we aim to introduce a systematic and

holistic Chinese theory – Eco-Translatology – and discuss its relationships with

the existing notions of eco-translation and some influential Western translation

schools.

Another topic that we will focus on is the promotion of tourism online and the

role played by translation therein. In today’s era of network information, online

travel advertising plays an important role in promoting the tourist product,

attracting visitors, and establishing the tourist image of the destination. China

was a particularly important strategic market for Spain prior to the Covid-19

pandemic. Therefore, the translation into Chinese of online tourism resources

The first step in exploring the approach to Translation as Adaptation and

Selection (TAS) was the lecture given by Professor Gengshen Hu in 2001

entitled From the Darwinian Principle of Adaptation and Selection to Translation Studies

at Hong Kong Baptist University. Then in 2006, the presentation Understanding

Eco-Translatology signaled the integration of this academic proposal and the

coining of its official name. During its development over the past twenty years,

a constant stream of researchers (Xu, 2009; Xu: 2010, Guo: 2011, Dollerup,

professional instincts motivate them to improve their skills to survive in the

translation industry. Certainly, Eco-Translatology theory is not only based on his

own thoughts but is also deeply rooted in Chinese culture. The classical precepts

of ancient Chinese philosophy, such as the integration of nature and the human and

profound influence on Eco-translatological discourse.

Eco-Translatology is an eco-paradigm of translation studies from an ecological

perspective. Specifically, it makes “metaphorical analogies” (Hu, 2020: 62)

between the translational ecosystem and the natural ecosystem. Inspired by

Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory of survival of the fittest, Hu (2003) proposes

that the translator lives in a translational eco-environment, which is formed by “the

worlds of the source text and the source and target languages, the linguistic,

cultural, and social aspects of translating, as well as the author, client, and

readers” (Hu, 2003: 283). To survive in their translation environment, the

translator must be able to make rational choices and adaptations. Adaptation and

rendition or domestication and foreignization; at a micro level, the translator

may be concerned about the style, grammar and register, among other features.

Taking the translation of tourism advertising as an example, the publisher of the

advertisement should choose an experienced translator who is highly familiar

To help clarify these concepts, Figure 1 shows the components of the holistic

Figure 1. Translational eco-environment (Prepared by the author based on Hu, 2003)

The translational eco-environment includes two parts: the source language (SL)

world and the target language (TL) world. Each ecosystem contains different

translation communities, which interact and interplay with each other, such as the

author, the reader, the donor, the publisher, and the translation critic. The

translator must adapt their work to these two environments and make their own

decision as to how to create a target text that meets the needs of those translation

transdisciplinary and holistic approach, ecology, as a methodology that

dominates the universal social thinking mode, is a discipline that not only has an

extensive impact on society but also is of ultimate significance to human

existence and development”.

Eco-Translatology is not only based on ancient Chinese thinking; it is also related

to influential Western schools. Of all the translation theories developed in

western countries in the last 60 years, four that share similar elements of analysis

to those present in Hu's theory have been chosen for further discussion.

thinking and practice that knowingly engage with the challenges of human-

author explores in detail the ecological relationship between translation and

climate change, fast food, biodiversity, technology and globalization. In other

words, he claims that the ecological approach not only includes the natural world

but also everything that happens around human life. The fundamental point the

author tries to make is that everything that happens in the ecological and social

environment will somehow relate to and affect translation. In response to these

changes, we need to find a sustainable growth model for translation

professionals and the language industries.

Both Hu and Cronin relate translation with ecological studies and use ecological

approach to explain the phenomena in translation. These two innovative

theoretical explorations draw our attention to the harmony that can exist

between humans and nature, and at the same time, prompt us to reflect on the

Despite their similarities, these two proposals are rooted in different cultures and

have obvious differences. On the one hand, Hu’s thinking is more systematic

because it constructs a holistic translation ecosystem that includes almost all

elements in the translation world. As Fang (2019: IX) comments, “Eco-

Translatology provides a new overview and exposition of translation principles,

thinks in a more divergent manner. The ecology mentioned by him not only

includes the natural world but also the political environment and further fields

that range across society, economy, technology, culture, and literature.

Hu emphasizes the role of the translator. He regards translators as the center of

the translation process because they are active decision-makers who complete

the adaptation and selection process and play a role in maintaining the ecological

balance between different communities. However, Cronin defends the

importance of the translated text in many aspects, such as cross-species

communication, the protection of minority languages, and building a shared

In the 1970s, Itamar Even-Zohar developed his polysystem theory in his work

Polysystem Theory (1979/1990) by studying the social, cultural, linguistic and

historic elements in a multiple system. He states that the components of the

polysystem, such as literary work and translation, “struggle for the primary

position in the literary canon” (Munday, 2016: 171). The movement and

interaction of the subsystems renew and refresh polysystems. Eco-Translatology

establishes a dynamic system that includes all aspects of the translation world.

Both systems are heterogeneous and complex, and the movement of elements

is inevitable. Competition and coexistence exist among the communities living

ecological communities such as clients, publishers and readers, whereas in the

polysystem, the so-called “elements of the system” (Even-Zohar, 1979/1990:

34) include producers, consumers, institutions, repertoires, products, and

markets. By comparing two systematic points of view, we acknowledge that both

models analyze the main elements of translation activity, but the ecosystem

terms.

Based on his early polysystem theory, Toury developed his descriptive

translation studies, which offer a general theory of translation. In his seminal

book Descriptive translation studies and beyond (1995), Toury distinguished different

kinds of norms operating at different stages of the translation process: initial,

preliminary, and operational norms. The operational norms coincide with the

linguistic dimension of Eco-Translatology because both views focus on the

to the context of the situation and culture in communication. To clarify the

communicative, pragmatic and semiotic. The three dimensions of

transformation proposed by Hu (2020) also include the communicative

dimension. However, the communicative dimension of context refers to the

language variation that appears in linguistic expression. In some cases, this

depends on the user and is distinguished as idiolectal, geographical, temporal,

social and standard/non-standard variation. In other cases, it also depends on

the conscious stylistic choices made by language users and is classified by

register, which includes the field of discourse, the mode of discourse and the

tenor of discourse. We can see that Hatim and Mason’s communicative

dimension summarized different situations in the communication process.

The final Western approaches are Reiss & Vermeer’s skopos theory and

Christiane Nord’s translation-oriented text analysis. The following five rules

somehow encapsulate skopos theory:

translator’s point of view. We can therefore see that both proposals pay attention

to the function, but the main difference is that Nord talks about text, while Hu

stresses the role of the translator.

After introducing Hu’s contribution to Eco-Translatology and comparing it to