A Report On English Translation Of The Ninth Chapter Of Zhongguo Shenmei Wenhua Jianshi

Traditional Chinese culture, which is extensive and profound, runs a long coursefrom a remote source. An excellent work on traditional Chinese culture can helpdisseminate the essence of traditional Chinese culture, and an outstanding translatedversion of such a work can also provide English readers with a chance for betterknowing the splendid culture of the Chinese nation, contributing to more accessibilityof the Chinese civilization to the outside world. Traditional Chinese aesthetic cultureconstitutes an important integral part of traditional Chinese culture. By a chronologicalaccount of the aesthetic culture trends of the past dynasties, the Chinese bookZhongguo Shenmei Wenhua Jianshi strives to explore the most valuable aestheticculture resources of ancient China, presenting the most representative artistic beauty inChinese history. An English translation of the book will surely be conducive tospreading traditional Chinese culture, and as there has been no English version of itavailable, an attempt to translate it into English and its related analysis will be original.The present project aims to conduct English translation of “Aesthetic Re-Synthesisin the South and the North Dynasties”, the ninth chapter of Zhongguo Shenmei WenhuaJianshi. It expounds the aesthetic cultural history in the South and the North Dynastieswith regard to the dominant aesthetic culture represented by such aspects as poetry andsculpture in both theory and practice. The text of the chapter, which is humanistic andscholarly in an essay style, is rich with Chinese cultural connotation. On the basis of theexperiences of translating it, the translator writes her work report, involving thebackground and significance of the project, the process of translating, and analysis ofdifficulties in rendering. The thesis is composed of two main parts, the first of which isa report of the translation project and the translating process, and the basic principle oftranslating the chapter, and the second, expounds the translating principles and methodsin translating cultural connotation in cultural texts in general terms, and thenemphasizes on analysis of the strategy of rendering the Chinese cultural connotation inthe text of the chapter, with the Chinese and the English version of that chapter as appendices.In translating the chapter, the translator’s basic principle is, on the one hand,retaining properly the value and belief system, theoretical form, frame of thought, andway of expression of the Chinese text, and on the other, making sure that the Englishversion presents features of the English academic prose so that it can be accuratelyaccepted by the target readership. As regards her analysis of rendering the Chinesecultural connotation, the translator summarizes her translating experiences on the basisof her comprehension of the Chinese original text for the translating strategy andmethods she employed. The comprehension process is interactive with the expressingprocess. In comprehending, the translator strives to reach a thorough and accurate graspof the Chinese cultural connotation on lexical, syntactic, and textual levels. Inexpressing, giving priority to conveying what the original intends to mean, sheconsiders fully the linguistic habits of the English speaking countries, the specificcontext, and the translating purpose, and thereby chooses proper rendering methodssuch as literal translation, free translation, interpretive translation, translation withannotation, etc. On the textual level, the translator takes the text of the chapter as awhole, making sure that it is rendered in a consistent way.