A Report On C-E Translation Practice Of The Ancient Capital Of Nanjing From The Perspective Of Cultural Schema Theory

With further development of globalization,the pace of Chinese culture going out has been increasingly faster.Local cultural heritage as an important component of Chinese culture is playing a pivotal role that cannot be ignored in the process of cultural communication.Hence,the translation of cultural heritage texts is also more and more crucial.But there are numerous unique local cultural heritages in China and it is difficult for a translator to learn about the professional knowledge and background of every place in a short time.In order to improve the efficiency and accuracy of translation,translators have to rack their brains to find a way out.This report is based on the C-E translation of The Ancient Capital of Nanjing,a book of Memory of the Old Home in Sketches published by Academy Press.The book The Ancient Capital of Nanjing records the historical buildings,modern architecture and famous ancient residence as well as folklore culture in Nanjing.It is a typical cultural heritage text.During the process of translation,the writer of this thesis encountered three challenges: first,the source text involves a lot of professional knowledge and technical terms about ancient Chinese architecture.Second,there are a large number of local folk activities and craftsmanship that the writer has never heard or experienced,and the writer cannot find much information about them in related books or internet.Third,the target readers are almost all foreigners who are interested in Chinese culture.So,how to make the translation be easily understood by readers without losing Chinese characteristics is what the writer should consider.In order to solve those problems,the writer of this thesis adopts case study method to analyze source text under the guidance of cultural schema.This report mainly discusses translation strategies to the correspondence,conflict and vacancy of cultural schema.As translation is not only the exchange between the two languages,but also the communication between two cultures.The writer finds that applying the method of literal translation to deal with cultural corresponding,and free translation,additional translation and literal translation as well as literal translation with notes to handle cultural conflict,and transliteration,transliteration with notes and literal translation to dispose of cultural vacancy can efficiently express the original flavor of source text and narrow the distance between the target text and readers.The writer hopes that her own translation experience could provide some reference for the study of cultural heritage texts translation and make a contribution to the Chinese culture going out.