Text-less Back Translation Of China-related Historical Materials-A Report On The Translation Of The Creation Of Foreign Inspectorate Of Customs At Shanghai

The 21st century witnesses increasingly frequent and flourishing academic exchanges between China and other countries,bringing about vigorous development to Chinese academic translation.With a huge number of works of foreign sinologists introduced to China,the back-translation of these works,especially historical materials is raising concerns from scholars.It is commonly accepted that it is of academic significance to ensure high quality of the Chinese historical materials.The theory of back translation has gone through interpretation from both the perspectives of linguistics and culture.Domestic scholars Wang Hongyin(2015),Jiang Huimin(2012)and etc.,develop the concept of "non-native writing" and accordingly "text-less back translation".Literature on native culture accomplished in its own language is defined as the native-language writing,while those accomplished in foreign language is defined as non-native language writing,and the back translation occurring thereby is regarded as text-less translation for cultural retrace.The author tries to explore practical translation strategies and methods through the translation practice of the book The Creation of Foreign Inspectorate of Customs at Shanghai.As China-related historical materials,this book is characterized by an abundance of Wade-Giles of names and titles,culture-loaded words,terms,multilingual expressions as well as proverbs.Based on the translation of Chapter 21 and part of Chapter 22,this report conducts a detailed case study,and eventually concluded several translation methods applied in the translation like addition,free translation,and auxiliary techniques including bold conjecture,examination,and exhaustive searching.And inspiration is gained that the ability of information searching and testifying is vital in back translation.