A Report On The English-Chinese Translation Of Ten Thousand Miles Without A Cloud

Ten Thousand Miles without a Cloud is an English documentary book,written by Sun Shuyun,a British-Chinese writer and television producer.With religion as the theme,Ms.Sun follows the line of several main places where Xuanzang traveled,and describes the changes from Ancient time to the Modern in concise words and documentary style,showing different kinds of cultures and history to readers.The author of this report selects some examples from the book,and discusses the strategies and methods in translating documentary books.First,he introduces the translation task,including the source of the translation material,the profile of the original,and the purpose of translation.Then,he describes the process of the task,including the preparation before translation,the translation process itself and translation difficulties.Next,under the guidance of Vermeer's three rules,namely,skopos rule,coherence role and fidelity rule,combining domestication and foreignization strategies,the author discusses the translation methods and skills,such as free translation,adaptation,substitution,literal translation,transliteration,borrowing and addition,omission,passive-active voice conversion,long sentence segment,word order adjustment,conversion.Finally,the author summarizes the translation experience and points out the limitations of the translation practice and report.Throughout this translation,the author enhances his understanding of the local customs,culture as well as the history along the ancient Silk Road,and recognizes Xuanzang‘s historical contributions.In the meantime,he learns strategies and methods to promote Chinese culture from the writer of the original.It is concluded that the documentary book has the features of the expressive and informative texts,and the translator should consider the double purposes of transferring the stylistic features as well as the contents of the original.Hence,when translating this kind of texts,the translator should manage to make the target text precise and readable to receptors by adopting some corresponding strategies and methods under the guidance of skopos theory.