On Translation Difficulties And Strategies Of Western Sinological Works

With the increasing development of communication between China and the Western countries,the translation of Western works on China Studies or of publications on Chinese culture written inEnglish becomes a hot topic, but it also brings new challenges. With the strengthening of China’snational power, more and more Western works on China Studies have been translated into English,and Chinese translators will encounter more back-translation problems in this field. It is aninevitable result of cultural exchange.This report is based on the author’s practice of translating part of Chapter1of The PhantomHeroine which is a book about seventeenth-century Chinese literature, but the legacy of the stories,poems, and plays explored in these pages still exerts a strong grip on the contemporaryimagination. There are four parts in the report, in the report the author first briefly introduces thewhole translation task and then analyzes the features of the source text The Phantom Heroinewhich are also the most difficult parts during the translation process. The body of this report isdevoted to the translation techniques employed by the author when translating the source text ThePhantom Heroine. Guided by back-translation Theory, the author illustrates the differenttranslation techniques with the examples from this translation practice. In the last part, the authorsummarizes the whole report and tried to summarize some useful strategies in back-translation andoffers some suggestions to those translators who may encounter the similar source text in thefuture.The study of translation of Western works on China Studies is of great significance, whichhelps both Chinese translators and readers to understand traditional Chinese culture and languagein the Western perspective, and facilitates the communication and exchange of different cultures.