Report On English Translation Of Chapter Eighteen In Zhongguo Shenmei Wenhua Jianshi

The beginning years of the 21 st century have witnessed many a great change in the world,and globalization is no doubt one of them.With the development of modern technology,the world is becoming smaller and smaller and the exchange between different cultures has also become increasingly important.Understanding a country?s traditional culture is one of the major channels for understanding the country?s status quo.Translating the academic achievements on the traditional Chinese culture by contemporary Chinese scholars is of much significance to transmitting Chinese culture to the outside world.In the profound traditional Chinese culture is the Chinese aesthetic culture,which constitutes its most resplendent part.The Chinese scholarly work Zhongguo Shenmei Wenhua Jianshi(A Brief History of Chinese Aesthetic Culture)takes its readers on a tour of the traditional Chinese aesthetic culture chronologically,from pre-historical times to modern ages.Illustrated with abundant pictures,the book presents us with an in-depth look into the magnificent tradition of Chinese aesthetic culture.Translating this book into English is beneficial to the spreading of traditional Chinese aesthetic culture.Up to now,no English translated version of this book has been published yet.Therefore,this project is both necessary and original.This translation project takes the Chinese text of the 18 th chapter “Pursuit of Elegance and Criticism in Qing,the Last Feudal Dynasty of China” of the book as its object of translation.This chapter mainly talks about the aesthetic pursuit of elegance and criticism in the Qing dynasty in regard to calligraphy,seal cutting,architecture,literature and painting.This text falls into the category of writings in humanities and social sciences,and in terms of style,it is both academic and literary.On the basis of his translating experience,the translator writes his translation report,which comprises of several parts,including the background and significance of this project,analysis of the original text,description translation process,and analysis of the problems encountered and their solutions.While translating the text,the translator finds it a major problem how to properly render the original information through amplification and reduction,and thus he devotes a separate chapter to this aspect and delves into his practice of amplification and reduction in the translation process.In his translating,based on various relevant factors,the translator formulates his overall translation principle,that is,to convey accurately the original substance(thoughts and opinions),and to render the version conforming to the English academic writing style and meanwhile reproducing the original cultural elements.To put into effect this principle,he adopts domestication as his main strategy and foreignization as his supplementary strategy.On the language operation level,he uses flexibly various translating methods.In the original Chinese text,its author mentions various historical figures,masterpieces,historical events,and so on.In translating the Chinese cultural elements,the translator employs some translation methods,in which amplification and reduction method are the two main ones.His amplification is mainly embodied in providing syntactic cohesive devices and background information,while his reduction is mainly made for omitting redundant information.For example,as there are often many repetitions of the same words in the original Chinese,the translation reduces them properly in the English version.Proper amplification and reduction contribute to the concise and accurate expression of information in the version,which is more idiomatic in terms of the English structure and thus more readable.The overall translation objective of the present project is to reach the standard for publication of translated academic works in English and to report accurately to the outside world the scholarly achievements made by contemporary Chinese scholars.