A Report On The C-E Translation Of Myths And Legends Of The Bai(Excerpt) From The Perspective Of Steiner’s Hermeneutic Motion

Translation of the mythology of the Bai is of crucial significance to the spread of the culture of the Bai to other countries.By applying the fourfold hermeneutic motion of George Steiner,this report conducts a research on the translation of Myths and Legends of the Bai(excerpt),which is of the folklore literature of the Bai.This book provides a fundamental basis for studying the customs and ideology of the contemporary Bai people by depicting various myths of the industrious and brave ancestors in conquering nature as well as reflecting the wisdoms and values of the ancestors of the Bai.This report thereby selects four myths from “Myths and legends of Patron God” and one myth from “Myths and legends of Dragon” as translating material for the inheritance and development of the Bai culture and for letting more English readers understand the origin of the Bai culture.Some scholars have studied the myths of the Bai,but discussion from the perspective of hermeneutics is to be covered.In the After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation of Steiner,he claims that translation process includes four steps: trust,aggression,incorporation,and restitution.Trust refers to that the translator believes that the translation of the text is worthy.Aggression is the understanding of dissociating from linguistic external shell of source text.Incorporation is the stage of expression.Restitution makes up for the lost information in the process of translation.In this report,it is believed that the translation of this text will contribute to the inheritance and development of Bai culture,which is the “trust”.Aggression is the recreation of the language style and cultural awareness of the source text.Domestication is adopted to “absorb” the meaning and form of the original text in order to conform to the reading habits and thinking modes of the target readers.However,after the “aggression” and “incorporation”,the information of the ST is not complete as before,so the methods of annotation and amplification are adopted to balance the information of ST and TT.Case analysis and comparative analysis are used in the study to explore the translation activities of the text.It concludes that fourfold motion of Steiner can effectively guide the translation of works of ethnic groups,and the application of it can eliminate some cultural barriers and make the translation more smooth.It is hoped that the translation of this work can promote the further discussion on the translation of ethnic minority cultures by scholars at home and abroad.