A Report On Chinese-English Translation Of The Book Of Time: An Account Of The Twenty-four Solar Terms (Excerpts)

With the continuous promotion of “Go Global” strategy of Chinese culture,cultural exchange activities between China and foreign countries are becoming increasingly frequent and the extensive and profound traditional Chinese culture has gradually embarked on the international stage.As the typical representative of the excellent traditional Chinese culture to the world and the intangible cultural heritage of the United Nations,the Twenty-four Solar Terms carry the profound traditional Chinese culture and are accepted by people all over the world.Therefore,the translation and dissemination of traditional culture such as the Twenty-four Solar Terms is an important content of spreading excellent Chinese culture,telling excellent China stories and enhancing cultural confidence.Meanwhile,it can maintain the diversity of world culture and provide impetus for the innovation of contemporary Chinese culture and the development of world civilization.This translation practice report is conducted as an active exploration based on the background.This report selects the solar terms of autumn of The Book of Time: An Account of the Twenty-four Solar Terms written by Yu Shicun,a famous scholar,to carry out the Chinese-English translation practice.The selected part systematically expounds the contents related to the autumn solar terms such as climate,customs and the contemporary value of the solar terms,which has a high value of dissemination and inheritance.The selected text belongs to the cultural science text,which is meticulous and scientific and has profound cultural connotation.Meanwhile,the translation material also cites numerous words and sentences from Chinese classics.In this report,the author analyzes the text and explores the translation methods under the guidance of cultural translation theory of Liu Miqing.After the analysis of the text,the translator firstly focuses on the scientific interpretation of the terms of Chinese Astronomy and Chinese calendar in the source text.Secondly,the translator attaches more attention to the effect of language communication in cultural translation and discusses the key points of translation of proverbs and allusions.Finally,from the perspective of aesthetics,the translator analyzes the translation methods of prosaic sentences,Chinese four-character structures and poems.Meanwhile,the translator discusses how to use aesthetic expression means in cultural translation to ensure the original essence of the translation.The translator benefits from the translation practice and report writing.Firstly,the translator further understands the excellent traditional Chinese culture,especially the Twenty-four Solar Terms and its value of translation and dissemination;Secondly,the translator learns about the characteristics and styles of cultural and popular science works.Thirdly,through the study and practice of cultural translation theory,the translator can flexibly adopts a variety of translation strategies and skills to reproduce the cultural connotation of the source text and ensure the readability of the translation,which greatly improves the writer’s translation ability.It is expected that this report can provide references to some extent for the translation practice of cultural popular science texts.