A Report On The Translation Of Steeped In History:The Art Of Tea From The Perspective Of Intertextuality

Guided by the theory of intertextuality and the methodology of cultural back-translation,this translation practice report takes the first part of Steeped in History: The Art of Tea as the source text to handle the E-C translation of English articles written by foreign authors on Chinese tea culture,analyzing its cultural restoration,exploring and summarizing the specific application of translation strategies and methods in this practice.Different kinds of proper nouns and sociocultural terms in the original texts and their rendering are discussed,some errors corrected,some pieces of missing information supplemented,and necessary annotates added in the version.This report has discussed the selection and implementation of translation strategies under intertextuality and cultural back-translation throughout the translation process via the analysis of specific examples.It aims to explore the value and functions of intertextuality in the translation of texts in related disciplinary domains,and to retrospect the collision,exchange and integration of different cultures in back-translation.The book of Steeped in History: The Art of Tea is compiled by 11 famous foreign scholars in the domain of tea,focusing on the history of tea art in the whole world.It combines the development of tea art in the East and the West respectively,brings together disparate voices in a cross-cultural approach,and presents the historical changes of tea industry and tea art around the world with high academic level and aesthetic appreciation.The intertextual relationship between the source text and Chinese classics on tea culture is of typical representativeness.As a result,how to embody such an intertextuality so as to demonstrate the continuity of Chinese tea culture in the translation deserves serious study.Translation itself is an intertextual activity,involving not only translational activity between different languages,but also intertextual understanding of texts.Therefore,this report also gives due attention to the cultural phenomena in the original text.It is known that almost all foreign works concerning Chinese themes would contain some cultural elements or cultural phenomena with unique Chinese characteristics,either explicitly or implicitly.When such works are translated back into the Chinese language,it is actually a sort of cultural back-translation.Since such works are rooted in Chinese culture,when translated into Chinese again,it is necessary to consider how to follow the intertextual traces to find out thevery roots of the mother-text,and to restore Chinese cultural information in the rendered versions.In translating the weak intertextuality in the original text,the translator has used the translation techniques flexibly according to the specific context,and strived to make the version vivid and expressive.As for the strong intertextuality,the translator has tried to make full use of all the intertextual clues to find out the original tea classics to maintain the normal inheritance of the intertextual relationship among these texts.The final purpose of so doing is to properly enhance the influence and status of China as the birthplace of the tea culture the world over.