【正文】 on accurately can be obtained. These problems exist in many places and give readers a bad impression the first sight when they see them. Cultural Translation Errors To be bilingual, one has to be bicultural (Nord 2021: 75). Language, as a reflection and carrier of culture, varies greatly from nation to nation. English and Chinese differ from each other in cultural features as well as corresponding language styles. Language is a symbol of culture and a part of culture. CE sign translation is also closely related and even confined to the range of culture, which should be kept in mind by the translators in order to avoid crosscultural munication barrier. Conversely, without thorough understanding of the cultural information contained in words, the translator will find it tough or even impossible to acplish the translation task. Unidiomatic Expressions There exist a lot of idioms and fixed expressions in English. However, some signs just adopt wordforword translation without considering the norms in English language. Thus, these signs may lack of naturalness and appropriateness. As the east and the west have different thinking patterns, they employ different ways to express ideas. Accordingly, they differ in wording, in sentence structure and also in collocation. Take some signs as examples. “暫停收款 ” “Stop Cashier ”。 “無煙醫(yī)院 ” “Smoking Is Not Allowed In This Hospital”. The above signs (劉法公 , 徐蓓佳 , 2021) are translated with no regard to the way the English language is used. In addition, they do not read smooth or natural. The idiomatic expression of such signs in English should be “暫停收款 ” “Closed”。 警戒線勿超越 Police Line Do Not Pass。 12 歲以下兒童免費 Free Children Under 12。 they do not suggest mandatory. Restrictive Public Signs Restrictive public signs are used to limit and restrict the behavior and action of people, but people will not feel tough, brutal and unjustified. For example: 保持安靜 Keep Silence。 易爆物品 Explosive。 武威人民 醫(yī)院 Wuwei People’s Hospital。 the government in Beijing even established English Translation of Public Signs Guiding (ibid.: 53). All these prove that English translation of public signs has bee more and more important. However, there are a lot of problems in ChineseEnglish translation of public signs. Some of the bilingual public signs can be misled to the foreigners, which greatly affect the city’s profile. As for translating Chinese public signs into English, the objects are the foreigners. The purpose of using the bilingual public signs is to allow the foreigners to understand the translated texts and bring convenience to them. Translation of public signs is a new area in translation. Since 1990’s, many scholars have made researches in this area from many aspects and much achievement has been made. But on the whole, the work of translation of public signs still has many improvements to be made. 2. Literature Review The research of signs translation is a new area in the field of translation. In China, the ChineseEnglish translation of public signs started relatively later than abroad (ibid.: 52). According to ZhaoXiang, sign translation studies in China started in 1990s with a series of academic articles published on Chinese Translators Journal (ibid.). The early research claimed the importance of sign translation and pointed out the mistranslations in signs. A search on , the largest digital library in China shows, there are fewer papers on sign translation before 2021, only one paper each year from 2021 to 2021. However, an increasing number of papers have been published in different periodicals and journals since 2021, which demonstrates to some extent that the study of sign translation has been paid more attention. In a sense, the great breakthrough was made in 2021 when Chinese Translators Journal started a column especially for sign translation, arousing greater concerns about the topic. Another drive was the successful bid for the 2021 Olympic Games, which appealed more researchers to do their part to support the Games. Since then, a number of scholars have been continuously doing research on sign translation, providing a series of studies on signs translation and publishing articles mainly on journals. In 2021, “the 1st Symposium on Camp。對本論文所涉及的研究工作做出貢獻(xiàn)的其他個人和集體，均已在文中以明確的方式標(biāo)明。公示語的重要性是毋庸置疑的，然而，公示語翻譯是翻譯學(xué)研究的新領(lǐng)域，目 前還存在不少問題。 strategies and principles discussions. Meanwhile, different theories have also been applied to researches such as skopostheorie, speech act theory, cultural, functional and municative approaches in translation studies, etc. A series of principles for more effective sign translation have been put forward from the perspective of readers’ responses. All the previous studies on sign translation have laid a solid foundation for future research. Nevertheless, a careful study of some papers at home indicates that there is no united theory or principle to follow for the translation of public signs. It seems that the heat discussion in the academia does not have an obvious effect on the signs on the street。 植物園 Botanical Garden. Such public signs are often used in public services。 最低消費 Minimum Charge。 賓客止步 Closed to Visitors。 緊急呼叫電話 Emergency Phone, etc. Mandatory Public Signs Mandatory public signs are to request people to take action, to obey some rules and not to violate the law. The language of such public signs is blunt, and has no room for negotiation. Such words as “No”, “Forbidden”, “Prohibited” are often used. The Sentence structure of this kind is rather simple. It often uses imperative sentence. In this context, people often have no other choices but to follow it. For example: 嚴(yán)禁吸煙 No Smoking。 嚴(yán) 禁 攜帶易燃易爆等危險品進(jìn)站 Dangerous Articles Prohibi