On Translating Intertextual Elements In C-E Translation In Humanities And Social Sciences

Zhongguo Shenmei Wenhua Jianshi (A Brief History of Chinese Aesthetic Culture) is anacademic book in the field of humanities and a social science, which describes the historicaldevelopment of Chinese aesthetic culture, and its English translation will promote theintroduction of traditional Chinese culture to the English readership. The sixth chapter of thebook, which is the object of English translation in the present translation project, containsquite a lot of intertextual elements and the key research question of the present study is howto render intetextual elements in academic books in humanities and social sciences withspecial referece to the translation of the sixth chapter of the book. Drawing on previousresearch achievements, those intertextual elements are analyzed and a tentative plan isproposed, which has been carried out in translating the chapter. In translating, without losingsight of the literary requirement, the historical and documentary principle is dominant,emphasizing equally substance, structure and style in a flexible, adequate and informative way.In rendering the intertextual elements, the translator adopts the follwing plan: firstly grasptheretically the basic concepts of intertextuality and relevant literature, and lay a cognitivefoundation for recognizing those elements, either explicit or implicit; for the explicit part, tryto find whether there have been translations produced by previous translators, and if therehave, quote them and give sources, or make proper adaptation of them before integrating theminto the translated version, with sources given too; make compensation of backgroundinformation when necessary in the form of intratextual noting or paratextual noting; if therehave not, translate by herself in accordance with the translation principles. For the impicit part,a basic choice is the translator’s translating by herself, sometimes rewrting with reference toextant translations if available to make them compatible with the whole translated version.The overall translation of intertextual elements is governed by the global translation principlesand purpose. The plan propsed here is subject to further verification and improvement intranslating practices in the field of humanities and social sciences.