A Descriptive Study On Additions In The English Translation Of Shi Ji

As the first part of Chinese Twenty-four Histories, Shi Ji is a representative and excellent one among Chinese historical books. It keeps a record of over three thousand years of Chinese history in the form of a series of biographies. It is famous for its accuracy and vivid characterization.Currently, researches on the English translation of Shi Ji are limited and focused on translation review and cultural items. Most studies choose Burton Watson's version as the object rather than Nienhauser's version and the Yangs' version, let alone a comparative study between Nienhauser's and the Yangs' translations of Shi Ji. In addition, most studies are focused on the strategies of translating cultural items in a qualitative method.Within the framework of descriptive translation studies, this research describes additions and reasons for additions in the English translation of Shi Ji. Using Nienhauser's and the Yangs' versions of Shi Ji as the objects, this research selects 139 sentences from “The First Emperor of Qin”. By comparing the translation with the source text, the research finds out the additions, classifies them into different patterns, and explains the reasons for additions.There are 551 additions in Nienhauser's translation and 398 in the Yangs'. The additions can be classified into nine types, including grammatical, semantic, logic, rhetoric, cultural, incorrect, empathetic, cohesive, and phonetic additions. In Nienhauser's version, grammatical additions account for 55.72%, followed by semantic additions(29.04%), cultural additions(6.90%), rhetoric additions(3.27%), logical additions(2.72%), cohesive additions(1.27%) and incorrect additions(1.09%). In the Yangs' translation, grammatical additions account for(48.24%), followed by semantic additions(33.92%), cultural additions(5.03%), logical additions(4.52%), rhetoric additions(4.02%), incorrect additions(1.76%), empathetic additions(1.01%), cohesive additions(1.01%) and phonetic additions(0.5%). The research finds that there are both similarities and differences between the two versions in terms of additions. In both of the two versions, grammatical additions account for the biggest part, followed by semantic and cultural additions. However, the Yangs prefer to combine short sentences into a longer one and adopt the strategy of rewriting while Nienhauser prefers to keep the original sentence structure and uses more additions to represent details in the source text and improve readability.Additions are necessary for several reasons. First of all, due to the features of Chinese classics, such as concise expression, ambiguous meaning, and abundant cultural items, translators have to use additions to achieve the translation purpose. Secondly, structure differences between English and Chinese require translators to use grammatical additions and make adjustments in logical and cohesive relations. What's more, Shi Ji is a historical and literary masterpiece, so translators should represent the aesthetic values by means of rhetoric and empathetic additions. However, because of the lack of reference materials and textual research, or due to translators' misunderstanding, there will be several incorrect additions. Besides, there are a few phonetic additions resulting from the translator's habit or some other accidental factors.