A Report On The English Translation Of A Brief Study Of The Educational System Of Ancient Chinese Schools (Excerpt) Guided By Thick Translation Theory

This translation project is based on the book A Brief Study of the Educational System of Ancient Chinese Schools,which provides an overview of the school education system in ancient China.The book covers the development of China’s school education system from the pre-Qin to the Qing Dynasty.The translation project covers about 10,450 Chinese characters,which is the content of Chapter Fourteen of Part Five.This part mainly describes the school education system of the Ming Dynasty,and introduces the central government schools,local schools,private schools and academies in three sections.When translating this material into English,the author of this report encountered four types of translation difficulties which were classified as follows: the content of ancient literature,cultural loaded words,celebrities’ introductions,and the lack of explanatory materials.Under the guidance of the thick translation theory,the translator provided in-depth explanations of the source text and effectively engaged the target readers by addressing the four types of problems mentioned above.As the source text belongs to the informative text,the thick translation theory was used in the author’s translation process.The author added information and explanations,solved different grammatical problems between English and Chinese,and added terminology footnotes,background footnotes,book introduction footnotes,and celebrity introduction footnotes.At the same time,the translator also added charts,Emperor chronology,terminology glossary,and preface to make the translation more effective in terms of readability,faithfulness,and communicativeness.