A Report On The C-E Translation Of Customs In Northeast China(Excerpts)

The report is written based on translation methods of four-character structures in the informative text.From April to May 2019,the author worked as an intern in College of Fine Art and Design of Shenyang Normal University.During the internship,the author had a chance to participate in the Chinese-English translation practice of Manchu paper-cut of the northeast region and work for the national intangible cultural heritage project.The source text is excerpted from Customs in Northeast China,which presents the style and current situation of paper cutting in northeast region.The excerpted text is featured with strong Manchus cultural elements,covering the folkloric habits,cultural beliefs and customs.Therefore,to some extent,it aggregates the difficulty of translation.In addition,according to Peter Newmark(2001),communication theory is more applicable to the informative text.Therefore,communicative translation theory is applied as a guide in the report.In the process of translation,it is found that the translation of four-character structure is difficult.There are 170 four-character structures in the excerpted text.Fourcharacter structure,as a unique language of Chinese,carries abundant cultural connotation.In this report,the four-character structures are classified into three types based on its logical relationship.For example,subject-verb form,modifier and the modified form and coordinate form.Under the guidance of the communicative translation theory,the translation methods of four-character structures are explored.Translation methods such as annotation,substitution,reconstruction and omission are adopted to translate four-character structures in this translation report.Through a deep analysis,it is found that some SV forms can be restructured to make the target language logical and clear;and coordinate structure can be annotated to supplement the cultural blank or be omitted to avoid redundancy;substitution can be used when there are corresponding expressions in the target language.In addition,the author follows communicative translation to make the translation smooth and natural by using abovementioned methods.The report aims to better show the cultural connotation of Chinese through different translation methods of four-character structures and to provide a reference for those who work on such text.