A Report On The Translation Of Life Among The Chinese (Chapter 4-5) And Journeys In North China (Chapter 14)

This report is a review on the translation of Chapter 4 and 5, an essential part of Life among the Chinese, written by R. S. Mac lay and on the translation of Chapter 14, an important section of Journeys in North China, written by Alexander Williamson. These two books deal with what China was in the eyes of Western Christian missionaries, describing the geography, history, diplomacy, religion, governmental agencies and the law in China extensively and profoundly, and expositing the psychological state of Chinese and local customs and practices in details.The part of the author’s translation mainly narrates the government of China, laws of China and CHIH-LI. The government of China includes the emperor, privy council, public council, board of civil office, board of revenue, board of rites, board of war, board of punishments, board of public works, colonial office, court of representation, court of appeals, imperial college, provincial government, nobility, literary degrees, municipal regulations; the laws of China includes general, civil, fiscal, ritual, military, criminal laws, and those relating to public works; the CHIH-LI part mainly introduces the writer’s experience in CHIH-LI. The two books are chiefly of the narrative and persuasive styles of writing and are full of official titles, titles of books and colloquial expressions, which cover characteristics of the Chinese administrative setup, criteria for the formulation of Chinese laws, the provincial organization of CHIH-LI as well as living styles, spiritual ethics and cultural ideals of the local people. In view of the language features and translation difficulties, the author takes the three rules of the Skopos Theory as guiding principle for this translation practice. The author is to give a discussion on the translation from three aspects:words level, syntactical level and textual level.In "case analysis", the core of the report, the author firstly analyzes and classifies the difficulties mentioned above, and then elaborates the translation process as well as the translation approaches applied such as the literal translation method, free translation method, conversion method, amplification method, integration method and other translation strategies. In order to keep the writer meaning and let the Chinese readers understand the original meaning better, the author, under the macro guidance of the three rules of the Skopos Theory, tries to reproduce the styles of the original text in native Chinese. Finally, the author summarizes the translation practice, points out the inadequacies of the translation, and puts forward suggestions for future improvement. And the author would be greatly relieved if this translation report could be of some help to those who study translation or do researches on Western Sinology or travel literature.