A Report On Translating Chinese Ceramics

Porcelain culture is an important part in traditional Chinese culture. Porcelain texts are featured with a large number of technical terms, abundant information and culture-loaded words. Exactly conveying the basic meaning of porcelain texts and their cultural connotations will help foreigners to understand traditional Chinese folk culture and the wisdom and aesthetic value of the Chinese.,This report is based on the C-E translation of porcelain materials, the original text of which is from two chapters of Chinese Ceramics, edited by Feng Xianming. These two chapters make a systematic introduction of blue and white porcelains, under-glaze red porcelains and colored glaze porcelains. They are about 11,000 words. Existing materials about C-E translation of porcelain texts are mainly from traditional translation theory perspective and focus on a concrete aspect, such as vocabulary, term and porcelain name. However, these studies lack wholeness perspective. After analyzing the characteristics of porcelain texts, the author thinks the translation variation theory can be the guidance in the C-E translation of porcelain texts. In the theory, it is necessary to use some variations on the basis of original text during translating to increase its readability. This report discusses the translation from the four aspects as follows:four-character expressions, culture-loaded words, long and difficult sentences, and redundant information. The first one is translated by adaptation, the second by explanatory translation, the third by adaptation and selective translation, and the last by edited translation.The report indicates that the translator needs to take features of porcelain texts into consideration in C-E translation and then one should use proper methods and techniques on account of specific requires. Meanwhile, the translator needs to use an appropriate theory as guidance and makes use of relevant techniques to fully reappear meanings of original texts.