Challenges in Museum Translation and Countermeasures: A Case Study Based on the Hubei Provincial Museum

Museums carry and transmit cultural messages. With the "going out" strategy widely implemented in China, C-E translation of museum text plays a more and more significant part in the popularization of Chinese culture. As a national 5A tourist attraction, the Hubei Provincial Museum attracts a large number of overseas tourists every year. Therefore, its English translation is of great importance in the field of external publicity. The translation of museum texts, which aims to offer foreign visitors clear and precise information about exhibitions, is an important genre of overseas-targeted publicity translation. Under such circumstances, visitors' understanding and response to the text-reader "communication" are crucial to the publicity of Chinese culture through museums. From the perspective of Reception Theory, in the "triangle" of text, writer, and reader, the reader is viewed as a vital functioning participant in the processing of texts. Therefore, the authors believe that examining the English translation of museum text based on Reception Theory is a highly feasible method. In light of Reception Theory, this paper examines the Hubei Provincial Museum as an example to look into the C-E tradition in museum translation and explore innovative ways in museum translation. The authors analyze the English translation of several typical museum exhibitions from different aspects, such as language format and cultural differences, and give some suggestions to solve certain correlative problems.