The English Translation Of Chapter6in The Panorama Of Xiangxi And Its Critical Commentary

In the21st century, the cultural globalization is an irresistible trend, and as China attains increasingly international reputation, the distinguished Chinese culture is drawing more and more international attention, especially the Chinese folk customs. Regarded as the essential component of Chinese culture, the Chinese folklore custom is extremely unique in characteristics, rich in contents and diversified in forms, which has become a sort of unparalleled cultural resource attracting more and more foreigners. The Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in the western Hunan Province (hereafter referred to as Xiangxi) nurtures its colorful and exotic folk custom which is counted as the treasure of Chinese folk culture, because of Xiangxi’s unique geographic location and time-honored history. It is not only the responsibility of the translator in the new era, but also a mission of Xiangxi people to push the ethnic culture to the world by translating these precious folk customs.The Panorama of Xiangxi published by China Minzu University Press in December,2012is the first edition concerning the overall survey of the folk custom of Xiangxi. Informative and authentic, the book also reveals a large amount of new resources and discoveries. Chapter6of this book has been selected for English translation which mainly concerns with Xiangxi’s art and literature such as dances, folklores and music, hoping to protect and spread the folk customs in Xiangxi.Based on the translation completed, the critical commentary examines the translatability in the folk custom and the difficulties in its translation and discusses how to translate the lexis of folk custom better for introducing the authentic Chinese folk culture to the world. Besides, by analyzing the problems encountered in the translation process, this commentary further suggests several translation strategies like transliteration, literal translation, free translation and annotation. These strategies are more dynamic than static, as Chinese folk custom-related vocabularies are highly diversified and heavily culture-loaded. Therefore, different folk-culture-specific words can be translated by different methods or by the flexible combination of several methods so as to faithfully convey the semantic meaning as well as the linguistic and cultural flavors of the source language.In conclusion, the author expects to provide some illuminating insight into the translation of Chinese folk custom through this commentary, and enrich the translation theory of the specific culture, and guide the translation practice of this field.