Culturally Textual Research And Back-translation Of Chinese Culture

This translation report is based on the translation practice of Emperor Wu Zhao and Her Pantheon of Devis,Divinities,and Dynastic Mothers into Chinese,which is a professional academic sinology writing about how Wu Zhao paved the road for her enthronization.It contains many Chinese cultural elements including Tang history and culture,ancient myths,Confucian,Daoist and Buddhist doctrines,and classical Chinese.Due to its complicated content,mixed phonetic transcription and English,and the citation of numerous ancient Chinese classics,there are many difficulties to be overcome by the translator during the back-translation process.In this report,in order to discuss the back-translation process and back-translation methods of these Chinese cultural elements,they are divided into three categories: proper nouns(personal names,place names,books and papers names),conceptual cultural words(historical allusions,myths and legends)and quotes of the old Chinese classics(direct quotes,indirect quotes).Under the guidance of the theories of back-translation,cultural back-translation and culturally textual research,these Chinese cultural elements are back-translated to Chinese.Based on the translator’s textual research details for Chinese cultural elements,analyses are conducted from the perspectives of proper nouns,conceptual cultural words and quotes of the old Chinese classics to study the great significance of culturally textual research for the precise understanding of the source text and the guaranteeing of the quality of the translated text in the back-translation process of sinology writings,so as to provide some references for other translators engaging in similar translation tasks in the future.