A Report On C-E Translation Of Culture-Specific Items In Zhongguo Tujiazu(Excerpt)

With the deepening of cultural exchanges between countries,the translation of Chinese cultural works into English has achieved fruitful results and the translation of Chinese minority cultural works into English has also attracted increasing attention.Most of the existing English translations of Chinese minority culture are those of ethnic classics.There are few translations of popular works of minority culture which can provide a comprehensive introduction to the material culture,social culture,and ideology of ethnic minorities,and current studies in this field,whether on offering theoretical support or analyzing the translation practice,are far from enough.As a result,ordinary English readers have little chance to get a comprehensive understanding of ethnic minorities of China.Therefore,it is of great necessity to conduct an in-depth study on the translation of popular works of China's minority culture.In view of such a situation,the author of the present thesis chooses the C-E translation of Zhongguo Tujiazu(The Tujia People of China)as the translation project for her present study.As a volume of a series of books introducing all ethnic groups of China,The Tujia People of China is edited by experts and scholars who are familiar with the culture of Tujia people and it provides a comprehensive and accurate introduction to the Tujia people.Besides,compared with ethnic classics and epics,The Tujia People of China,with simple but vivid language,is a better choice for ordinary readers to have a preliminary understanding of the Tujia people.There are many culture-specific items in The Tujia People of China which make the translation difficult.Based on her translation practice of The Tujia People of China,the present author of the thesis takes the translation strategies identified by Aixela as the theoretical basis,analyzes the difficulties in translating popular works of minority culture and explores the applicability of Aixela's translation strategies to the translation of such works.The author also attempts to come up with some suggestions on the translation strategies and methods for the translation of these works in the hope of providing some references for further study in this field as well as promoting the spreading of minority culture and cultural exchanges.The thesis begins with an introduction which consists of research background,description of the task,and purpose and significance of the study.The task process is outlined in the following part which includes preparation before translation,translation process and post-translation work.And then the author gives a survey of the definition and categorization of culture-specific items,and Aixela's translation strategies for culture-specific items.Whereafter,a case study is conducted to illustrate the difficulties in the task and explore the translation strategies coping with these difficulties in the translation process,especially difficulty in translating culture-specific items.A quantitative analysis is conducted to analyze the applicability of Aixela's translation strategies for popular works of minority culture.The case study with quantitative analysis proves that Aixela's translation strategies for culture-specific items have strong applicability for popular works of minority culture.In the author's translation practice,the conservation strategies are adopted more frequently than the substitution strategies.The strategy of linguistic translation reaches the largest proportion and it is often used together with the strategy of extratextual gloss or intratextual gloss.The strategies of synonymy and autonomous creation are not applied in the author's translation practice.In certain cases,the translator renders into the same version those culture-specific items with the same or similar meaning,which may be regarded as a complement to the translation strategies put forth by Aixela and be adopted in translating popular works of minority culture.