Cultural Anthropological Study Of Kam Grand Choir Translation

Cultural anthropology is a discipline focused on the cultural issues of a particular ethnic group.Its main concerns involve cultural holism and cultural relativism,among others.Of the two,cultural holism advocates viewing culture as a whole and a multi-dimensional system composed of material,spiritual and social aspects while cultural relativism,as is opposed to the notion of ethnocentrism,emphasizes that every culture has its full reason and significance of existence if taking its specific social-historical environment into consideration and which,therefore should be highly respected by people of other cultures.The main research approaches of cultural anthropology include ethnography,thick description,emic and etic,which guide researchers to study culture from multiple perspectives and dimensions so as to achieve comprehensive and holistic description and record of the ethnic culture.As a “human intangible cultural heritage” of both state-and world-classes,Kam grand choirs are not only the pride of the Kam and Chinese people,but also the treasure of the world.However,as a classic form of ethnic folk oral literature,Kam grand choirs have seldom been translated into other languages including English so far.Therefore,it is imperative for us to study the English translation of Kam grand choirs,in response to the national strategy of “cultural going-out”.The present thesis is intended to explore the English translation of Kam grand choirs from the perspective of cultural anthropology and answer the following two macro-research questions:(1)How to realize “holism” in our ethnographic records of Kam culture in grand choir translation?(2)What concrete strategies can be applied to the thick description of Kam culture in grand choir translation?In order to ensure the representativeness and completeness of the research samples,the source texts for the present translation study have been selected from 28 samples of Kam grand choir of diverse types drawn respectively from 15 books as well as the present writer's personal records in her field work in Kam area while the English versions of all these 28 examples have been produced through the present writer's own translation practice under the strict guidance of her supervisor.After a qualitative and explanatory study of the English translation of above-mentioned samples of Kam grand choir within the theoretical framework of cultural anthropology,this thesis has arrived at the following findings:First,in present translation study,“holism” is realized in the present writer's multi-dimensional ethnographic records of Kam culture closely related to grand choir,ranging from material culture to spiritual culture to institutional culture.Second,in present translation study,“holism” is also realized in the present writer's multi-perspective ethnographic records of Kam culture underlying grand choirs,involving both the emic and etic perspectives.Of the two,emic perspective is one of viewing Kam culture from the local people's point of view while etic perspective is one of viewing Kam culture from the outsiders' point of view.Third,the strategies applied to the thick description of Kam culture in the present writer's grand choir translation include annotative translation of cultural terminology,interpretative translation of idiomatic expressions,supplementary translation of cultural properties and complementary translation of cultural contexts.Among them,annotative approach is applied to the transliteration and literal translation of names of legendary celebrities,secular life,ideology,and terms of address,architecture,customs and religion respectively;interpretative approach is applied to the translation of the idiomatic expressions such as the idioms,proverbs,sayings,aphorisms and allusions;supplementary approach is applied to the translation of cultural issues such as cultural identity,characteristics and attribute;complementary approach is applied to the translation of cultural contexts including natural,social and situational contexts.This thesis is concluded by pointing out that cultural anthropology provides a brand new perspective for the translation study of ethnic folk oral literature like Kam grand choirs.