A Report On The Chinese Translation Of Peking And Pekingese During The First Year Of The British Embassy At Peking (Chapters One To Two)

The report on translation practice is based on the translation of Chapter one&two of the volume one of Peking and the Pekingese during the First Year of the British Embassy at Peking written by Rennie.David Field,d.who came to China in 1860 as a member of foreign mission.The book records and narrates how Pekingese perceived those foreigners who came to Peking for the first time in history during the first year of the British Embassy at Peking,and how Chinese people were in foreigners' eyes in diary form.Though Rennie.D.only stayed in China for one year,he wrote such long memories with two volumes,narrating his experience in China.This book provides many rare historical literatures regardless of the existence of prejudice and untrue parts.Rennie.D had careful observation to the society,and recorded and narrated his own and others' interesting and amazing experience,with the intention of making people in his country know more about China,such as national and people's customs,daily life and psychological characteristics in China.The author translated Chapter one and Chapter two of the first volume.Chapter One and Chapter Two mainly narrate Rennie.D's experience and feeling in traveling before his arrival at Peking.Chapter one of the book describes human relationship in northern rural areas in China,damage caused by the war in the villages he passed by,local landscape and tractability of northerners in their character as well as people's tragic fate in Ma Tun Town at that time.Chapter two mainly describes his experience in Chun King House,his impression to Pekingese,dinner customs he witnessed in Gongqin King House and visiting church.According to the linguistic features,the author chose German functionalist skopos theory as translation strategy.Under the guidance of skopos theory,the author took the translations of lexical expressions,sentences and chapters as examples.When translating the lexical expressions,the author used many translation methods,such as literal translation.When translating the sentences,the author changed passive voices into active sentences.And when translating the chapter,the author split the sentences according to logical structure in order to make the sentences concise and easy to understand.Furthermore,the author paid attention to the cohesion in the chapter.The report consists of five parts.Part one is a brief introduction to the background,contents and significance of the project.Part two is about preparation before translation,which briefly describes the search and reading of relevant literatures and analyzes the vocabulary,sentences and textual characteristics of the source text in detail.Part three is about theoretical basis of the translation,stating the generation,development and application of German functionalist skopos theory.Part four is the case analysis of translation practice,where the author gives examples to illustrate the methods used in translation from the aspects of vocabulary,sentences and text.Part five is the conclusion about experience,achievements,shortcomings and future direction in the course of writing translation and translation report.Thanks to the translation practice and report composition,the author benefited a lot.Translation of Peking and the Pekingese during the First Year of the British Embassy at Peking makes me better understand all aspects of the social life in Peking in late Qing dynasty and provides rich materials for me to study Peking in late Qing dynasty.However,there are still some shortcomings in the report.In the future,the author will learn a lot of translation knowledge to be a qualified translator.