A Study On The C-E Translation Of Cultural Relic Commentaries Based On Rhetoric Theory

With the increasing development of Chinese economy and international influence,Chinese culture has received great achievements in the external communication.As a cultural exhibition place with a rich history,the museum is an indispensable window to display Chinese culture.Furthermore,the museum commentary is an important transmission link to spread culture.But at present,English commentaries shown in many domestic museums or on their official websites fail to be fully qualified,which are not very satisfactory compared with those in English-native countries.Thus,the audience-oriented effect of English commentaries in Chinese museums could be further strengthened.Based on the rhetoric theory,the author tries to conduct a study by respectively selecting 80 English commentaries of Chinese cultural relics from the official websites of the Capital Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.With the help of parallel texts and contrastive analysis,the author attempts to explore how to further improve the quality of English translated commentaries in Chinese museums so as to satisfy targeted audiences.Through the research,the author finds out that there exist great differences in text content,text structure and text expression between the English commentaries that come from the Chinese and foreign museums.Aiming at how to strengthen targeted audiences’ understanding and identification towards the English translated commentaries in Chinese museums,the author tries to explore more by applying some strategies from the aspect of text intelligibility,audience awareness,persuasion emotion,as well as some methods,namely literal translation plus annotation,paraphrase and adaptation.It is hoped that we can improve the readability and acceptability of the translated texts,and meet the expectations of targeted readers,so as to better encourage the spread of Chinese culture to the world.When translating Chinese commentaries into English,translators should not only pay attention to the standardization from the level of language,but also fully consider audiences’ reading habits.The research is expected to broaden the C-E translation studies of cultural relic commentaries in China.Meanwhile,it also has practical significance for the C-E translation for international communication.