A Report On Translation Of Zhang Dai’s Tao’an’s Dreamy Reminiscences (Tao’an Mengyi)

This report is about the English translation practice of ancient Chinese texts selected from Tao ’an ’s Dreamy Reminiscences(Tao ’an Mengyi),which is a collection of essays of memoir written by Zhang Dai(1597-ca.1684),a Late Ming essayist.By recollecting and narrating Zhang Dai’s personal experiences,the book describes in details the social life in Jiangsu,Zhejiang,Shandong,etc.in Ming Dynasty.Although it depicts the leisure life of youngsters in noble family,it records the social life and folk custom of late Ming.In the book there are a number of records of daily life,entertainments,opera,garden,and so on of Ming Dynasty.Thus it is an important documentation for researching the material civilization of Ming Dynasty.In addition,it is special among Chinese ancient jottings and characterized by vivid short essays which contain one hundred to four or five hundred Chinese characters.The report is based on the source texts,10,000 characters in total,from the book’s Prologue and 30 essays in Volume Ⅰ and Ⅱ.The book contains many culture-loaded terms,such as those of allusion,geographic items,official titles,era names,persons,etc.Literal translation without any explanation and provision of relevant background knowledge cannot allow the readers of target language to understand the target texts.To cope with this,the translator used the strategy and methods of thick translation during the translation practice,making necessary annotations for the culture-loaded terms to help the readers to better understand the book with sufficient background knowledge.Annotations used in the translation can be divided into two types:intext explanations and footnotes.Intext explanations are used for short explanatory texts that do not interrupt the flow of reading,such as those for person’s names;footnotes are used for long explanatory notes such as those for person’s introductions,historical events,sources of classical allusions and so on.With this practice,the aim of providing background knowledge to the readers has been reached.The report summarized the use of thick translation strategy in the translation of Tao’an ’s Dreamy Reminiscences(Tao’an Mengyi).It first described the background,significance,and structure of the report,and then described the analysis of the xiaopingwen style and features of the texts,preparation of translation tools,and the strategy and methods of thick translation,and later described the whole translation process including the proofreading,and in the end it summarized the specific thick translation methods used in the project.Thanks to the translation practice,the translator believes that thick translation is not only a practical strategy and method to translate Chinese cultural classics into English but also a feasible one.It is hoped that the specific thick translation methods concluded in the report can provide a reference for the translation of Chinese cultural classics of the same type.