A Study Of English Translation Of The Urban Life Of The Ming Dynasty

The author of the present paper participated in "the plan of promoting Chinese booksoverseas", undertaking part of the English translation of The Urban Life of the MingDynasty. The present book covers the diversified urban life in big cities of Beijing, Nanjing,Suzhou, Hangzhou and Kaifeng in the Ming Dynasty, such as urban layout and scale,relations between urban and rural areas, the clothing of urban officials and residents,various ceremonies, festivals, commercial activities and ordinary people’s life. It alsoreveals the trend towards worldliness such as money worship, hedonism, the pursuit ofindividual freedom accompanied by the commercial prosperity and the embryo ofcapitalism in the cities. Meanwhile it points out that the urban life in the Ming Dynasty isunique in that it developed from tradition of the Han and Tang dynasties and also brokewith tradition. Therefore, the urban life of the Ming Dynasty was in keeping with the paceof world modernization.Under the theory of translation typology put forward by Reiss in the course, the basictranslation principle was defined as "clarity, smoothness and richness" according to thepurpose and function of the book. In the meantime, need of readers of target language,translator’s translation purpose and limitations of culture of target language were taken intoconsideration. Then translation of this book was defined as translation in the broad senseand different translation strategies were laid down for different translation problems. In theauthor’s view, translation strategies and translation practice are closely linked. Afterdefining the basic translation principle, translators also need to lay down specific rules aswell as translation strategies for solving specific translation problems. This has a greatinfluence on the quality of translation.