A Report On C-E Translation Of Language And Culture Of The Miao Ethnic Group (Excerpts)

The source text of this report is An Overview of Culture of the Miao Ethnic Group,selected from the first part of the second chapter of Language and Culture of the Miao ethnic group written by Professor Li Jinping of Guizhou Minzu University.The selected part mainly narrates farming culture,culture concerning clothing,food,shelter and transportation,etiquette culture,the institutional culture of Gushe,Yilang,and Lilao and religious taboo culture.The translator hopes that through this translation practice,target readers can learn more about the various cultural customs of the Miao ethnic group.The translator also hopes that the translation report can provide a new perspective for the study of culture of the Miao ethnic group.The source text belongs to informative text with complete structure,rigorous logic,fluent writing,and clear argumentation.At the lexical level,the source text contains many culture-loaded expressions and four-character expressions.At the syntactic level,many run-on sentences,non-subject sentences and complex sentences are used in the source text.At the discoursal level,it’s obvious to find the paragraphs in the source text are correlated with each other and written with many cohesive devices,such as substitution,ellipsis,repetition,general word,synonymy,antonymy,and cohesive words.Based on the analysis of the features of the source text,the translator adopts Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory as the guiding theory for this translation practice.During the translation,the translator uses translation methods such as transliteration,addition,omission,translation and interpretation,footnote,literal translation,free translation.Guided by Adaptation Theory,the translator pays more attention to the readability,acceptability and dissemination of the translation,hoping that the target readers can learn more about the various cultural customs of the Miao ethnic group.In this translation task,under the guidance of Adaptation Theory,the translator analyses the translation strategies,methods and skills through specific cases from the two aspects of contextual correlates of adaptability and structural objects of adaptability.The translator analyses the key points and difficulties in the translation practice,and sums up her own experience and shortcomings gained from the translation practice.This translation practice makes the translator accumulate rich translation practical experience and improve her translation ability.The translator also hopes that this translation report can provide some suggestions and references for other translators.