A Review Of The Chinese-English Translation Of Sima Qian And Shiji

Sima Qian is a great historian in the history of China. His masterpiece Shiji is universally recognized as the "official format" of Chinese historical writings. Compiled by Chinese experts and scholars at the request of Jilin publishing Group LLC and Jilin Literature and History Press, Sima Qian and Shiji is heavily loaded with ancient Chinese cultural and historical knowledge. It provides a detailed account of the reason behind and the process of Sima’s history compilation, and appraises the literary value of Shiji as well as its place in history. In order to inform more readers in English-speaking nations of the life of Sima Qian, a figure of cultural and historic importance in China, I chose the book-Sima Qian and Shiji as the source text for my translation practice.This thesis is a review of my Chinese-English translation of Chapter One and Chapter Two in Sima Qian and Shiji. Under the Skopos theory, this thesis analyzes how I have conveyed to readers the cultural factors contained in the source text, namely some Cultural Words, Chapter Headings and Classical Chinese and it also analyzes the translation skills employed during my translation process, namely the use of Impersonal Subject Sentences as well as the translation methods of Long and Difficult Sentences. Based on the review of my C-E translation of Sima Qian and Shiji, this thesis aims to bring the attention of more scholars and translators to the C-E translation of the books that contain much ancient Chinese cultural and historical knowledge.