English in Bilingual Promotional Material of Chinese Maritime-related Exhibition Publicity: A discourse Analysis Study

Abstract

 In recent years, the numbers of bilingual advertising texts have increased in China’s international maritime exhibitions. Nevertheless, the shortcomings in wording and phrasing, usage of translation strategies and intercultural communication in these China English texts are not only contrary to the Plain English Movement which advocated a more concise and economical use of words and sentences in the late 20th century, but also adversely affect the Belt and Road Initiative as well as intercultural communication. In this paper, various promotional material collected from major maritime-related English exhibitions in China over the past three years will be taken as examples. This paper will adopt the discourse analysis theory to summarize the problems of redundancy, Chinglish, misuse of translation strategies and mismanagement of intercultural conflict in relevant bilingual advertisements. The paper then suggests a series of ways for improvement in order to improve the quality of China English texts as well as promote intercultural communication.