A Report Of C-E Translation Of Jian Zhi:Min Jian Jian Zhi Nian Hua(Excerpts) Guided By The Adaptation Theory

Traditional Chinese folk arts that have been passed on for hundreds of years,contains profound cultural elements and reflects the pursuits of the Chinese people.As a representative of China’s intangible cultural heritages,paper-cut not only serves as a folk art form with appreciation value,but is welcomed among people all over the world.Jian Zhi:Min Jian Jian Zhi Nian Hua(《剪纸:民间剪纸年画》,Paper-cut:Chinese Folk Paper-cut and New Year Pictures)which incorporates with the academic meanings and the artistic beauty of traditional paper-cut,introduces the historical development,regional features and artistic characteristics of Chinese folk paper-cut in details.The author takes the first part of the book as the material for this translation practice.The practice aims to improve the author’s translation ability and explores effective methods to introduce Chinese folk culture in English.The craftsmanship and patterns of the folk traditional paper-cut are closely related to the communicative context of the source language such as Chinese history,folk customs and religious beliefs.The most challenging problems for the author are how to convey the information related to the folk art in English while enabling the target readers to fully understand and accept the translation because the social environment and cultural background of English readers are different from that of Chinese readers.According to the Adaptation Theory put forward by a Belgian linguist Jef Verschueren,using language is an ongoing choice-making process due to the differences in contextual factors and communicative purposes between communicators.The author should not only take the differences in the cultural background of the source text into deliberate consideration,but also should adapt to the language structures and expression habits of the target readers.The author chooses appropriate translation methods to deal with challenging translation difficulties to dynamically monitor whether the target readers fully understand the information conveyed in the translation.There are many culture-loaded words,four-character structures,rhetorical devices,ancient verses,folk proverbs and folktales in the source text,which hinder the English readers’understanding of the cultural connotations of paper-cut.In light of the Adaptation Theory,applicable translation methods such as transliteration,amplification and annotation are chosen to improve the quality of translation at lexical,sentential and textual levels.The author aims to optimize the readability of the representative translation difficulties in the source language to set a better connection which assures the effective cross-culture communication between the Chinese and English readers.Through this translation practice,the author’s translation competence and the theoretical learning and application ability have been improved,and the problems and solutions in the translation of Chinese culture have been explored and concluded.