A Translation Report On The First Chapter Of Culture Smart Italy

This thesis is an English-Chinese translation project report on the selected source text named Culture Smart Italy written by the famous scholar Charles Abbott. The book introduces the social life in Italy in various aspects, such as the history, geography, politics, the national character, local customs and practices, daily life, commercial culture, cross-cultural communication and so on. The project selects the first chapter which mainly introduces Italy’s geography, population, history. The final translation text turns out to be19,648words.During the process of the translation practice, the history and the cultural background of Italy mentioned in the first chapter of Culture Smart Italy are totally different from those of the Chinese. The translator chooses the Reiss’s Skopos Theory, which basically holds that as long as we can achieve the purpose of translation, namely, meeting the expectations of the readership of the target text, we can not only use literal translation, but also use completely rewritten method, or any other translation skills between the two. Therefore, in order to make the translation and the target readers have the similar exchange between the original readers and the original text, and also in order to achieve the purpose that let Chinese tourists obtain the related knowledge of history, nature, geography, culture through reading the tourism translation text, the translator needs to use some translation skills in the translation so that the target readers lacking in cultural backgrounds can communicate with the original author of the book.The translator chooses the tourism text, which is a kind of cross-cultural communication. Different countries have different cultures and customs, so the translators should not simply provide the tourism translation service, but understand the differences between exotic cultures so that language, culture and tourism can interact with each other in the tourism English translation. Italy is the origin of Western civilization, profoundly changing the European’s thoughts and lives. The Renaissance which is a great turning point in European history began in Florence of Italy, so for Chinese readers who are interested in the history of Italy, it is necessary to build a bridge for them and also for the Chinese tourists to know the broad and profound Italian culture and modern Italy’s basic situation. Since it is a popular book, the language in the target language should also be accurate, simple, and brief so as to serve the general public in all walks of life.