A Study Of The English Translation Of Fu Sheng Liu Ji From The Perspective Of Thick Translation

In 1993,American translation theorist Kwame Anthony Appiah proposed the concept of “thick translation” or “thick contextualization” for the first time in his essay titled “Thick Translation”,advocating to locate the text in a rich linguistic and cultural context with its annotations and its accompanying glosses.Thick translation can provide target language readers with background information about the text,compensate for the cultural default in cross-cultural translation and play an irreplaceable role in defending cultural authenticity and promoting cultural transmission.Fu Sheng Liu Ji is a splendid autobiography tinted with numerous traditional Chinese cultural elements,in which the author,Shen Fu,depicts every aspect of his life and reconstructs the personalities,values and life attitudes of Chinese scholars in the Qing Dynasty.Pratt and Chiang’s English version features abundant endnotes and appendices,which manifest typical thick translation strategies.Under the guidance of thick translation,the present thesis aims to make a descriptive study of the embodiment of thick translation in the English translation of Fu Sheng Liu Ji by Pratt and Chiang and explore the motives behind the application of thick translation.The present author categorizes the thick translation in Pratt and Chiang’s English version into four major forms,namely introduction,endnotes,appendices and maps,and conducts a case study of the endnotes which cover a largespace of the book.The close analysis indicates that the reasons for the translators to apply thick translation strategy include readership,text type as well as the cultural differences between Chinese and English languages.