A Report On The Translation Of An Intellectual History Of Chinese Painting(Excerpt)

This translation practice is excerpted from the second chapter of An Intellectual History of Chinese Painting,totaling 14089 words.The book was published in 2018 and the author Xu Zuliang incorporates the history of Chinese painting thought into the grand system of Chinese academic thought history,which manifests the theoretical consciousness of the study of Chinese painting thought in the new era.The translation of this work can help to disseminate the thought of painting in the new era.The second chapter focuses on pre-Qin painting and philosophical thought,systematically illustrates the transmission and evolution of the spirit of Chinese aesthetics in the field of painting in the pre-Qin period.The translation task is completed in three stages: preparation,translation and post-translation.In the first stage,the translator read through the entire book,analyzed and summarized the features of the text,and read a large number of parallel texts.While translation,the translator encountered the following difficulties.Firstly,unlike the text-only books,the book presents a large number of art works with illustrations;at the same time,the text mentions lots of terms on painting and some abstract concepts peculiar to Chinese philosophy.Secondly,the text contains many run-on sentences,which can be roughly divided into two categories: one-subject and multiple-subject run-on sentences.Finally,cultural default in the source text may lead to a gap in semantic understanding for the reader,thus affecting the message the author tends to deliver.The translator takes the following solutions to the difficulties above: adopting the way of adding illustrations to introduce paintings and related terms;adopting the way of transliteration when translating Chinese philosophical concepts;adopting the methods of reorganization,division and omission when translating run-on sentences to improve the readability of the translated text.In the post-translation stage,the translator improves the quality of the translation by proofreading for several times,and typeset it in accordance to the original text.This report records the process of translating chapter 2 of the book An Intellectual History of Chinese Painting,summarizes the key points and difficulties faced by the translator,and explores the feasibility of intersemiotic translation in texts about painting.The translator hopes that this report will not only provide later translators with ideas for the translation of such texts,but also play a positive role in the dissemination of Chinese painting thoughts overseas.