A Report On The Translation Of The Wan-li Emperor

Recognized as a means of intercultural communication, translation is the process ofturning an original text into a text in another language. Translation generally can becategorized into literary translation and non-literary translation, or practical translation; andthe translation text in this report belongs to the former one. With the deepening ofglobalization, practical translation weighs more than literary translation in terms of influenceand utility. Referring to intercultural communication, however, literary translation reflects thetrue meaning, for literature shows cultural differences in economy, society and other aspects.Literary translation bridges different cultural groups. To do so, literary translators need tohave good bilingual and cultural understanding.This report is based on a part, covering about11000words, of the opening chapter, TheWan-li Emperor, of the book1587, a Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline.In this book, the Chinese-American writer, Ray Huang, shows how a number of seeminglyunimportant events and cases in1587might have caused the downfall of the Ming Dynasty.Since this literary text is written in English and talks about historical facts, it is highlyimportant for the translator to be aware of background information and terms, as well as theproper choice of translation theory.Mentioning translation theory, the translator applies Nida’s functional equivalence to thistranslating process. Since literature is an important approach of intercultural communication,if the literary translation fails to bridge people in different cultural groups, it is not a goodtranslation. Therefore, a translator needs to turn those hidden information in source text intowords to let target readers have better understanding. This is the aim of Nida’s theory, lettingtarget readers have similar feelings with original readers. There are four parts in this report, which are as follows. The first part introduces thecontent and source of this translation material; the second part is an overall grasp for thewhole translating process, concerning the choice of translation principle and theory; the thirdpart is the analysis of some crucial techniques and skills used in this translating process,specifically illustrating with examples from three aspects, namely part of speech, wordmeaning, and long sentence; the fourth part is a general summary of this translation.After this translating activity, the translator has obtained some findings both on theunderstanding of translation theory and the capacity to enter translation practices. It isnecessary for a qualified translator to lay solid bilingual foundation, and own rich knowledgeof expertise and sufficient practical translating experience.