A Report On The C-E Translation Of Beyond Chinese Wooden Architecture(Excerpts)

Chinese wooden architecture serves as a representative for the exchange of Chinese civilizations between countries.How to disseminate the materialized image to the outside world and tell China’s stories well are important missions for Chinese cultural communicators.Popular science writings on wooden architecture are important media of traditional Chinese architectural culture and their English translations are of great significance to spread excellent Chinese culture.The Chapter V,Chapter VI and Chapter VII from Beyond Chinese Wooden Architecture by Hong Kong scholar Zhao Guangchao are selected as the translation material.The translation material is a professional architecture book which boasts both informative and vocative functions.Through light,lively,witty and poetic language,the author tries to introduce profound Chinese architectural culture in a simple way.In the source text,the wooden architectural terms,with no corresponding culture in the target language,are highly abstruse,similar in wording,and form a series,while the culture-loaded words reflect unique images and connotations of Chinese architectural culture and most of them are vacant in the foreign culture.Long sentences have multiple semantic layers,weak cohesion,and exist omitted information.In no-subject sentences,the logical subject is secretive,and their meanings are abstract.Parentheses are often used to explain and supplement previous text.The extensive use of verses strengthens the literariness of the text.Therefore,to represent the linguistic features of the text while ensuring the accuracy of the information is extremely challenging for the translator.Under the guidance of communicative translation theory,the domestication strategy is suitable for the translation of wooden architectural terms,while foreignization strategy should be applied to translate culture-loaded words.And multiple translation methods are adopted flexibly according to the context,so as to maximize the effectiveness of the dissemination of Chinese wooden architectural culture.For long sentences with complex structure,division and reorganization are commonly used to improve the logic.For no-subject sentences,subject addition,voice shift and conversion are adopted to meet the writing habits of the target language.In addition,parentheses with the function of annotation can be retained,and parentheses with the function of exemplification and supplementary explanation are deleted,in order to achieve cohesion and coherence of the text.As for verses,rewriting is an appropriate method to reproduce its literariness,thus improving the readability of the target text.From this translation practice,it can be recognized that the translation of popular science writing on traditional Chinese architectural culture requires not only solid expertise,but also outstanding bilingual translation skills.This report summarizes the translation difficulties the translator encountered in the translation practice and the strategies and methods adopted,aiming to provide a reference for future translation tasks of similar texts.