A Report On The Translation Of A Cultural History Of The Dai Nationality (Chapter1: Culture And Ecology)

This is a translation project report based on the writer’s translation practice. The writerchooses "Culture and Ecology", the first chapter of A Cultural History of the Dai Nationality, asthe source text of this Chinese-English translation practice, because A Cultural History of theDai Nationality itself is a book with high academic value for the study of ethnology and culturalanthropology, and the Chinese-English translation of it has important practical significance, notonly conducive to the overseas publicity of Yunnan’s ethnic minorities culture, but alsoconducive to academic exchanges in the related fields; in addition, the first chapter of the book,"Culture and Ecology" comprehensively introduces the ecological culture and ecological view ofthe Dai people, and in terms of its language and content it is a good material for translationpractice and can help the translator to accumulate precious experience in the field of ethniccultural translation.In order to complete the translation task successfully, the translator not only makes efforts toacquaintance herself with the background knowledge of the author, but also fully analyzes thecontent of the text and focuses on reflecting its informative, systematic and readablecharacteristics when converting the source text. Given that it is an academic work and involvescross-cultural translation, its translation should not only give priority to faithfulness in content,but also take into account the readability of the translation text. This report, centering on thistranslation practice, with the functional equivalence theory as a guide, tries to use a variety ofmethods to solve translation problems, and it mainly discusses such translation methods asmetaphrase (literal translation), paraphrase (free translation), transliteration, transliteration addedwith notes and so on. Through the analysis of some cases, it intends to summarize effectivestrategies and methods on translation of ethnic cultural classics. The final part of the projectreport summarizes the inspirations that the translator gained from the translation practice,experience and lessons learned in the translation, and the translator also lists some of theproblems to be solved, in the hope of making a contribution to the exchange and development ofthe foreign translation of minority cultures.