A Report On The Translation Of French Painting

With strengthening cultural exchange between China and western countries,many works of art are introduced into China.However,the lack of expertise and interdisciplinary knowledge and no due attention paid to the research on the translation of works of art lead to low quality of translation of these works.French Painting,compiled by British Sirrocco Publishing Company,mainly introduces different genres of French painting as well as art works of famous artisans.This report is based on the author`s translation of French Painting.During the process of translating this book,the author encounters two main problems: first,the difference in expression between Chinese and English.The author needs to consider how to translate the source text into the target text which conforms to target readers`expectation;second,the loss of meaning,cultural connotation and elegance resulting from literal translation.The author needs to consider how to make up for the translation loss.Under the guidance of Peter Newmark`s theory of Communicative Translation,the author finds that the two translation skills-conversion and translation compensation-can effectively tackle those two problems.In order to deal with the difference in language expression,the author adopts the conversion of word class,sentence constituent,sentence structure and voice,making sure that the translation conforms to Chinese expression and reads smoothly and fluently.In order to make up for the translation loss,the author adopts compensation of meaning,cultural connotation and elegance,so as to guarantee that the effect produced by the target text gets as close as that of the source text.In addition,translation compensation can avoid obscurity or misunderstanding resulting from the translation loss.It is hoped that efforts made by the author can provide some references for the translation of works of art in the future.