A Report On The C-E Translation Of An Introduction To Ancient Chinese Zati Poetry(An Excerpt)

Zati Poetry is a treasure of ancient Chinese literature,which is rich in works but rarely studied by scholars.Fortunately,An Introduction to Ancient Chinese Zati Poetry is comprehensive research which complements the lack of the systematic study of Chinese Zati poetry in the history of Chinese literary criticism.Chapter 8,entitled“The Maturity and Development of the Metrification of Zati Poetry in the Sui,Tang and North and South Song Dynasties” covers the poetic background,the development and the main types of Zati poetry in the Sui,Tang and Song Dynasties.Mr.Yan systematizes the Zati poetry of the Tang and Song dynasties and delivers his unique insights.This report is based on the author’s Chinese-English translation of the literary criticism of Zati poetry in Chapter 8 of this book.The literary criticism of this Chapter has the characteristics of being informative,logical and complex,which requires the translator to analyze the complicated sentences very carefully and express them in the target language effectively.The theory this report is based on Textual Cohesion in order to successfully examine how to accurately convey the information of the original text,maintain the logic of the original text as well as the aesthetic requirements.This report studies the following cohesive devices in translation: At the lexical level,personal pronouns and indicative pronouns are cohesive devices to enhance cohesion.At the sentence level,the sentences which contain Zero-reference can be translated by adding subjects;nouns and gerunds can be used to weaken unimportant information and highlight core meaning;besides,the use of notional words will boost cohesion.At the paragraph level,the cohesion can be improved by simplifying transitional sentences and literally translating logical words.The author got deeper understanding about how to apply cohesive devices in translation of literary criticism text through this translation practice.The author hopes to enrich the translations of the literary criticism of Zati poetry and provide useful references for exporting Chinese traditional culture through proper handling of the cultural-loaded part of the book.