A Translation Report On Astronomical Thought In Ancient China From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

With the development of globalization,cross-cultural communication has become an important way of cultural exchange.Therefore,the translation of classics should be an important carrier for Chinese culture to go global.Ancient China made great achievements in science and technology,especially in astronomy that had been a world leader for a long time.Analyzing and summarizing the English translation of astronomical science and technology classics plays a vital role in the spread of Chinese culture.Guided by relevance theory,the author translates the third chapter of Astronomical Thought in Ancient China written by Chen Meidong.The selected chapter describes the ancients’ recognition and assumption during their observation of astronomical phenomenon and has a positive effect on the understanding of the traditional Chinese culture and comparing the difference between Chinese thought on astronomy and its western counterpart.The author illustrates the source text from the perspective of relevance theory to analyze the role of relevance theory in the translation of astronomical science and technology classics.This report consists of five chapters: Chapter one gives an introduction of the background,purpose and significance of translation task as well as an introduction to the author and content of the source text.Chapter two describes the translation process including pre-translation,translation and post-translation.Chapter three introduces the development of Chinese astronomical science and technology classics as well as its English translation.It also explains the origin,theory and development.Chapter four discusses the translation at lexical,syntactic and textual levels respectively in light of relevance theory with its guidance and focuses on the cognitive principle and communicative principle.The last chapter makes a conclusion of the report,where the author believes that under the guidance of the relevance theory,the translator should adopt different strategies and methods in the translation of astronomical classics: at lexical level,free translation for culture-loaded words,transliteration of proper words with annotation;at syntactic level,adaptation to passive voices,addition of connectives for loose sentences;and at textual level,substitutes for redundancy and rearrangement of sentence elements.The application of these translation strategies and methods can retain the cultural connotation of the Chinese classics and convey the astronomical achievement and thought in ancient China to target readers.