A Report On The C-E Translation Of The Art Of Flying Apsaras

This thesis is a report on the C-E translation of The Art of Flying Apsaras: From India to China(Excerpts)written by the renowned Dunhuang Studies scholar Zhao Shengliang.While the whole book introduces the evolution of flying apsaras art in Dunhuang culture,the excerpts elaborate the flying apsaras in the grottoes of Gansu,Longmen and Yungang,etc.A number of culture-loaded words concerning religion,literature,history and fine arts in the source text pose great challenges to the translation practice.Based on the English-Spanish texts,the Spanish scholar Aixelá proposed the concept of “culture-specific items(CSIs)”,which are classified into two categories:proper nouns and common expressions.He summarized two major types of translation strategies for CSIs: conservation and substitution,including eleven specific translation methods like repetition,intratextual gloss,synonymy,naturalization,etc.Furthermore,he explored the factors influencing the choices of the translator such as supratextual parameter,textual parameter,the nature of the “culture-specific items” and intratextual parameter.Aixelá’s strategies for “culture-specific items” play a vital role in guiding the rendering of CSIs in The Art of Flying Apsaras: From India to China(Excerpts).In the practice,the translator widely adopted transliteration,linguistic translation,limited universalization,deletion and other methods to effectively solve the translation difficulties.To complement Aixelá’s theory,the translator adopts another two methods in translation,namely,use the third language(Sanskrit)and the third language with annotations.Overall,Aixelá’s theory has broad applicability to the translation of texts with rich CSIs.