A Report On The Translation Of The Sanyuesan Festival Of Zhuang Ethnic Group (Excerpts)

The Sanyuesan Festival is an important festival of Zhuang Ethnic Group with deep cultural connotation,which has become a business card of Guangxi culture “going global”.This translation practice is based on Chapter 4 of The Sanyuesan Festival of Zhuang Ethnic Group,which introduces the customary rituals of the festival,including ancestor-worshiping and offering sacrifices to Longmu,etc.in simple style and plain language.Promoting the Sanyuesan folk culture abroad will help to strengthen the cultural awareness and confidence of Guangxi,improve cultural exchanges and cooperation between China and oversea nations,and create a good cultural atmosphere and environment in the BRI,thus realizing shared benefits.This report presents a detailed analysis and summary of the English translation practice of the source text.As the source text is an informative text,the translator uses Skopos Theory as the guiding theory and employs alternative translation approaches and techniques to tackle the obstacles faced along the way,thereby contributing to the readability of the translation and enabling the translation to be as precise and effective as possible in delivering the message contained to the readers.At the lexical level,liberal translation and transliteration with annotations are used to translate historical literature’s titles.Literal translation with annotations and transliteration with annotations are employed to translate names of Zhuang-specific characters,with an aim to convey their connotations.Literal translation,transliteration with annotations and picture-assisted literal translation are adopted to translate culture-loaded words,aiming to convey the information by adding the cultural connotation.At the syntactic level,amplification,condensation and lexical conversion are applied to translate Classical Chinese sentences.Omitting some cultural images,liberal translation and transliterating the lining words are great means to translate Zhuang folk songs.Amplification and change of voices are conductive to translating sentences with implicit logicality to add to its logic.At the textual level,adaptation is adopted to translate redundant information in the text to make the translated information more concise and clearer.In addition,non-translation is employed to translate negative information in the text to shape a positive image of Zhuang culture.In conclusion,this report is intended to present a summary of certain strategies and methods used in the course of translation,in the hope that it will provide some experience for translators in related fields.Based on this translation practice and case study,the author believes that appropriate translation principle and methods should be adopted in accordance with the context and purpose of the translation in the case of Zhuang culture promotional materials,conveying the cultural connotation of the original text and maximizing the readability and acceptability of the translation.