| The translation process is not only the transformation of two different languages, but also the communication of two different cultures. However, it is inevitable to cause translation loss in the process of translation due to different linguistic structure and cultural background in two languages. Translation loss refers to the loss of information, cultural factor, semantic meaning, pragmatic function, aesthetic form and function. In order to decrease the loss maximally the translator needs to adopt various compensation techniques.Shi Ji is a great Chinese classic with abundant cultural connotations and has attracted worldwide attention. The English version of Shi Ji has spread the Chinese culture to the world. But it is difficult to translate the culture-specific terms in the process of translating Shi Ji. Therefore, the quality of the translated version often relies on the culture-specific term translation.In reference to the Dictionary of Chinese Ancient Legal Words [1] and Dictionary of Chinese Ancient Life[2], the legal terms in Shi Ji are tentatively classified into five categories which are terms of law and regulation, terms of crime commitment and criminal penalty, terms of justice and trial, terms of relative appellation and terms of prisons. Under the general framework of the translation compensation theory, the effective compensation techniques for different translation losses are investigated based on the analysis of Nienhauser’s and Watson’s translations of Shi Ji focusing on legal terms. The result is that the translator shoulders the responsibility of rendering the semantic and cultural losses by employing various compensation techniques including annotation, specification, generalization, paraphrase, transliteration plus annotation, amplification, etc., and paraphrase is adopted much more frequently. And translation compensation has a significant role in translation studies and practice. |
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