On The Chinese-English Translation Of Classical Allusions From The Perspective Of Thick Translation

This translation report is based on the Chinese-English translation of the Introduction to Chinese Narratology,a monograph of narratology.The author of it,Yang Yi,a Chinese scholar,presents Chinese narratology different from the western one by comparing it with that of the western world in structure,time,perspective,images,and comments,and establishes a narratological system of China.The introduction mainly gives an overview of the origin and development of Chinese narratology from various aspects such as the structure,time,pattern.This translation practice is literary theory translation.The source text from the monograph is targeted at the Western scholars in the field of narratology.Further,the language applied in the monograph is abstract,and the content includes abundant narrative terms and quotes numerous examples and opinions from ancient Chinese classics.Hence,this monograph requires readers to be full-knowing about Chinese culture and narratology.All those pose challenges to the translator so that the translator should improve the expressions in the target text and read much literature on the allusions.Besides,the report finds that the previous researches on translating allusions focus on them from literary works rather than from monographs.Therefore,the report aims to help the Western scholars to understand the unique system of Chinese narratology from the references to ancient Chinese classics by adopting proper translation methods.To achieve the goal,the translator makes up for the loss of information in the target text.This report applies the thick translation theory of Kwame Anthony Appiah as its analytical tool to ensure that adding annotations is an effective method to put the text in a rich context.There are three strategies:literal translation with annotations,transliteration with annotations,and paraphrasing with annotations.Meanwhile,the thickness of the target text is adjusted in accordance with the focus of the author and the positioning and need of target readers.This report analyses the translation strategies of allusions in the monograph with the help of thick translation and figures out that adding annotations in several ways is an effective method to improve translation quality.The translator hopes that this translation report can provide some references to the translation of allusions in monographs.