A Report On The Chinese Translation Of 30 Heritage Buildings Of Yangon (Excerpts)

This paper is an English-Chinese translation report.The source text is selected from30 Heritage Buildings of Yangon,which is written by Sarah Rooney,and the translation achievement constitutes a main part of the results of the postgraduate innovation project“Research on the Translation of Architectural Art in ASEAN Countries”(No.2017YJCX77).The original work is divided into six chapters.According to the city and street layout,the landmark buildings of Yangon in colonial period are elaborated so as to arouse people's awareness of protecting cultural relics.During translation,guided by the text type theory and related translation theories and supported by parallel texts,the translator created a bilingual termbase with the use of computer-aided translation tools in the initial stage.Due to the fact that 30 Heritage Buildings of Yangon is a book with historical themes and there are a certain degree of differences between national language and national culture,the translator has encountered some translation difficulties in both the understanding of the source language and the expression of the target language.These difficulties mainly include the translation of the book's title,the Burmese names and appellations,architectural terms,culture-loaded words,measurement units,polysemic words as well as the verse.In this translation report,the translator not only gives an elaboration of above difficulties but also takes them as typical cases to study,so as to reproduce the solution of those difficulties.Through translation and case analysis,the following conclusions can be drawn: 1)In cross-cultural communication activities,as the language of ancient architecture is profession-specific,it is particularly important to normalize all the terminologies and create a standard bilingual termbase;2)The translation of the book's title is different from that of the general text.When converting English into Chinese,the translator should follow Chinese norms;3)Burmese names and appellations are different from that of other countries,and they have their own uniqueness.In translation,it is crucial to grasp their cultural connotations and know the translation principles;4)When translating culture-loaded words,a balance should be kept between preserving cultural connotations and fully expressing meanings.5)When translating measurement units,it is necessary to meet the cognitive style and reading habits of target language readers;6)When translating polysemic words,the translator should make full use of the restrictive function of the context;7)The basic rules of verse should be followed in poetry translation.