A Report On The Translation Of The Longest Day In Chang’an(Excerpt)

Since its premiere,The Longest Day in Chang’an,a Chinese-made web-series,has captured the attention of numerous viewers and won widespread recognition at home and abroad by virtue of the organic combination of such ancient and modern elements as the glorious Tang Dynasty and hi-tech big data,cliffhanging plots as well as elaborate production.Like other popular TV series adapted from novels,the drama,as it is being broadcast among audience,gradually brings the original novel to the fore.In light of such an increasing fame and popularity,the translator decides to render into English the first half of the first chapter of the original novel,The Longest Day in Chang’an,to meet the demand of overseas readers and audiences especially those keen on the culture of the Tang Dynasty.This effort is hoped to contribute to the cultural communication between China and other countries.The translation report consists of four chapters.Chapter One,Introduction,presents translation background,preparation before translation as well as the analysis of source text.Chapter Two,Theoretical Framework,deals with the definition and classification of culture-specific items,and Skopostheorie documentary translation type.Chapter Three,Analysis on Documentary Translation Approaches to Culture-specific Items,explores how to apply documentary translation type,namely,interlineal translation and philological translation to faithfully convey the cultural connotations of culture-specific items abounding in the excerpt;Chapter Four,Conclusion,summarizes the translation practice from the two aspects of findings and limitations.Based on the exploration,conclusions are as follows:Skopostheorie documentary translation type is conducive to effectively achieving the cultural fidelity of culturespecific items.More specifically,interlineal translation is applicable to those conventional proper nouns without special meanings;philological translation is feasible to those loaded proper nouns with historical and cultural connotations;philological translation is practicable to common expressions bearing special cultural implications.Hopefully,the foregoing discoveries will shed some light on the English rendering of Chinese culture-specific items.