A Report On The Translation Of A Brief History Of Qingyang (Excerpts)

This thesis is a translation report on local culture. The original text is excerpted from A Brief History of Qingyang which is published by the Social Science Academic Press in November 2014 and is one of a series of Chinese History written by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to carry forward the regional tradition, history and culture of China. The excerpted Chapter Four "Local Culture" introduces in details colorful local folk customs formed in the long-term working life of the local people and fully reflects the importance and far-reaching influence of Qingyang folk culture in Chinese civilization. Unique Longdong (or East Gansu) folk culture represented by Qingyang is an important part of Chinese folk cultures. Under the background of strong output and dissemination of local culture in China, the translation activity of Longdong folk culture meets the needs of the times and social development. Hopefully, it will also provide reference information for foreign visitors to understand Qingyang and to promote its international development of tourism.In this paper, the author follows the guidance of the skopos theory and aims to explore specific translation methods of folk culture. The skopos theory holds that translation is a cross-cultural human communication which has clear purpose and intent and develops based on the original text under the role of translators. The core concept of the skopos theory is that translating methods and strategies are determined by the intended purpose or function of the translation activity. Therefore, in the process of translation, it is necessary to take into account the purpose of the translation behavior, but also to maximize the readability and acceptability of translated texts, and to maintain the coherence between the translated text and the original one. Under the guidance of the skopos theory, the author uses literal translation, pinyin, pinyin plus interpretation, amplification and other methods based on the characteristics of the excerpted text, and makes different levels of analysis from vocabulary, sentence and discourse to achieve the purpose of cultural communication.This report is divided into four parts. The first part is the translation task description which presents the background of this task, main content of the original text and its language features, the significance of the project as well as its theoretical guidance. The second part introduces translation process, including pre-translation preparation, problems in translation process and proofreading. The third part is the most important part, which refers to case studies and explores different translation methods and strategies under the guidance of this theory. In the fourth part, the author sums up all the lessons, problems and deep understanding in this translation practice.Focusing on the translation strategies and methods of folk literature on this paper, the author sums up many translation methods for folk culture through the translation practice. Therefore, it is important for this translation task and for the research and practice of Chinese-English translation of similar cultural texts, but also is conducive to the publicity and promotion of Qingyang culture.