A Study On The Explicitaion Strategy In The English Translations Of Etiquette And Ritual Terms In Shi Ji And Han Shu

Chinese ideological and cultural terms reflect profound and extensive Chinese culture,and ancient Chinese etiquette and ritual terms are an important part of Chinese ideological and cultural terms.Ancient Chinese etiquette terms are cultural terms that reflect the cultural features of Chinese people's etiquettes,rites,conventional customs and habits.The translation of etiquette and ritual terms is of great significance to transmitting traditional Chinese culture to the outside world,thus it is an important research area in translation studies.However,due to specific national cultural features within etiquette and ritual terms,translators often meet with the problem of non-equivalence between source language and target language in terms of cultural connotation.As important Chinese classics,both Shi Ji and Han Shu contain a large number of ancient Chinese etiquette descriptions,which are in the merit for investigations into ancient Chinese etiquettes and translation studies of ancient Chinese etiquette terms.As one of the most important translation strategies,explicitation is a translation process in which the implicit meaning in the source text is brought into the target text.Explicitation is of great theoretical value to translation studies.Based on Shi Ji's English versions by Burton Watson,William H.Nienhauser,Jr.and the Yangs respectively,and Han Shu's English versions by Burton Watson and H.H.Dubs respectively,this paper examines social interaction terms,sacrifice terms,marriage and funeral terms with a view to investigating how the translators deal with the translation problem of cultural non-equivalence,whether explicitation strategy is used by the translators in translating the etiquette and ritual terms,what kind of techniques can help explicit those term connotations and what are the reasons for the translators to adopt explicitation.Based on the classified and statistical translation analysis of the etiquette and ritual terms in the English versions of Shi Ji and Han Shu,the thesis finds that the translators tend to adopt explicitation strategy to deal with the problem of cultural non-equivalence.Though their translation backgrounds and purposes are different,all the translators adopt the strategy of explicitation in one way or another when translating etiquette and ritual terms.Those etiquette and ritual terms that are culturally vacant in the target language tend to be translated with explicitation while those terms that do not involve cultural vacancy are usually literally translated.The explicitation techniques used by the translators in translating culturally vacant etiquette and ritual terms include transliteration plus generic translation,descriptive equivalent,cultural equivalent,intratextual gloss,connotative translation,etc.Besides,Watson tends to adopt the technique of cultural equivalent,and his translation version is easier and transparent.Nienshauser and Dubs often use descriptive equivalent technique in their translations,whose versions are detailed and specific.The translation versions of Nienshauser and Dubs are closer to the culture of the source language.The Yangs frequently resort to limited universalization technique to introduce Chinese traditional culture to the western world,whose translation version is natural and fluent.Therefore,the analysis of the cultural connotations of the etiquette and ritual terms in Shi Ji and Han Shu and the explicitation techniques for such terms in the English versions of Shi Ji and Han Shu may serve as a guidance for translating traditional Chinese etiquette terms into English and transmitting traditional Chinese culture to the outside world.