On C-E Translation Principles And Methods Of Historical Relic Texts(HRT) In Museums Of China From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

With a long-standing history, the Chinese nation has created and handed down many valuable historical relics, which attract many foreigners to travel and visit China. In culture“going out” strategy, translation plays an important role and the translation quality of HRT in domestic museums will have a direct influence on foreign tourists' cognition of Chinese culture. The functions of museums lie in education, research and appreciation. So the main purpose of the C-E translation of HRT in the museums is to convey the historical and cultural information to the world. As a consequence, it is very crucial to properly and completely transmit the message and culture in the HRT.This thesis adopts the comparative study, and the research corpora of museums in China are from the Palace Museum(PM), the Sichuan Museum, the San Xingdui Museum and the Jinsha Site, while the research corpora of foreign museums are from the British Museum(BM)and the Metropolitan Museum of Art(MET). Through the comparative study, the author finds two phenomena. On the one hand, the C-E translation of HRT in domestic museums has similarities in the ways of information layout, names, information contents and the cultural connotation. On the other hand, the English texts of Chinese and foreign museums are dissimilar to those aspects above-mentioned. The translation problem naturally arises from the above-mentioned phenomena. A present HRT translator usually has at least three possible choices: to proceed with the common practice among domestic museums, to borrow from the western practice among Anglo-American museums or to integrate both, then which choice can better assure China's historical relic culture “go out”? Although the translation studies of HRT started relatively late in China, scholars have made positive achievements. Having done a literature review on existing studies from both comparative and non-comparative researches,the author finds that the phenomena of similarities and dissimilarities have not been discovered with regard to the existing studies, and the problem of choosing translation methods arising from the phenomena has not been raised before, let alone the answer to it.In the C-E translation of HRT, translators can consciously or unconsciously apply any kind of translation methods. However, different translation methods may produce different texts, which will achieve different receiving effects. The conscious behaviors of people have certain purposes. Currently, the C-E translation of HRT in museums of China also has its purposes, that is, to make the historical relics rich in Chinese history and culture “go out”. Asa result, the Skopos theory will be appropriate and suitable for guiding the choices of methods for the C-E translation of HRT. Moreover, the purpose of the C-E translation of HRT is to promote culture to “ go out”. Therefore, the author suggests applying target reader-oriented translation principles and methods. Based on the reading situation, reading habits, reading needs and existing cognition of foreign tourists, the translators can apply the translation methods of imitation of information layout, adoption of internationally accepted English names, addition of information contents and amplification of the cultural connotation. In this way, the historical relics rich in Chinese history and culture can be better received.Under these circumstances, translators should be guided by Skopos theory. In this way,museums of China can better serve the target readers, improve their cognition of Chinese historical relics and enhance their understanding towards Chinese splendid civilization.Consequently, the historical relics rich in Chinese culture can “go out” in a better way.