Burton Watson's Translation Of Shiji

Shiji is a monumental historical work written by Sima Qian, the famous Chinese historian of the early Han Dynasty, and has been exerting a profound influence on later development of history and literature. Shiji has been translated into various languages; however, related researches on the translated versions have been relatively rare.The target for research in this thesis is Burton Watson's version, which was published jointly by The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Columbia University Press in 1993. The research is based on translation theories related with Dynamic Equivalence, Domestication and Foreignization. The textual analyses in the thesis are accomplished from linguistic and cultural perspectives. Linguistic studies include phonetic, lexical and syntactic analyses. The translator's mistranslations have been examined, and it is found that the following posed great problems to the translator:(i). Chinese-English linguistic diversities in the lexical and syntactic structures; (ii). differences in the pronunciations, word meanings and grammatical structures between modern and archaic Chinese; and (iii). linguistic variations of Chinese language itself. In cultural studies of the thesis, cultural terms are compiled into the following categories: wares, official titles, etiquettes and customs, architecture, allusions and geography. Through the analysis of the translations of the terms, it's concluded that the translator's strategies are generally positive. The reasons for translator's adjustments are discussed with an eye to the particularities of the cultural terms, their positions in the context and the role they play in the cross-cultural communication. However, in absence of knowledge about some minute factors of the historical and geographical background of the original text, the translator mistranslated some cultural terms, for which, Yang Xianyi's version has then been referred to for revisions.