A Report On The E-C Translation Of Amongst The Shans(Chapters 8-10)

There is an important historical and cultural origin between the Tai-Dai ethnic group in Southeast Asia and the people in southwest China.The origin of the Tai-Dai ethnic group has always been the focus of ethnic cultural research.The book “amongst the Shans” is a valuable historical record of the Shan ethnic group,a branch of Tai-Dai,which mainly introduces its local conditions and customs,clothing,architecture,and religious beliefs.The source text has a great deal of social and cultural knowledge about ethnic minorities and has important historical,geographical,and folklore value.This book is one of the masterpieces of western geography,which has important research value for the study of the origin of Tai-Dai ethnic groups and the study of the history and culture of southwest ethnic groups.This report takes Amongst the Shans(Chapters 8-10)as the source text in this translation practice which is guided by Newmark’s “semantic translation” and “communicative translation” theories.The text contains many culturally specific words and expressions of ethnic features,and there is a great deal of social and cultural knowledge about the history,architecture of ethnic minorities.Under the guidance of “semantic translation” theory,the translator accurately presented the meaning of words,retaining cultural characteristics and the sentence pattern of the text,and used quadrisyllabic word so that the structure and contextual connotation of the text can be reproduced to the maximum,and the culture connotation can be preserved.Under the guidance of “communicative translation” theory,the translator flexibly translated the passive voice,appositive clauses and attributive clauses,and properly adjusted the word order,this ensures that the translation is fluent and natural,and more closely aligns with the language preferences of the target readers.It is found that the flexible application of “semantic translation” and “communicative translation” theories to guide the translation of travel texts reproduces beautiful literary language to a certain extent,significantly improve the readability of the translation,and enhance the overall quality of the translated text.As a result,the “semantic translation” and“communicative translation” are instructive in the practice of translating this type of writing.