A Report On The Chinese-English Translation Of Ancient Towns With Three Kingdoms Relics (Excerpts) Under The Guidance Of Text Typology

The source text of this thesis is selected from Chapter Two(part one to part twelve)of the book Ancient Towns with Three Kingdoms Relics.The audiences of this book are foreign readers who are interested in the culture of Three Kingdoms.The book mainly talks about the ancient towns in Sichuan Province that involve the culture and historical relics of Three Kingdoms.The excerpts introduce these ancient towns from the perspective of their current situation,locations,history,tourist attractions,local industries,and folk culture.Katharina Reiss divided texts into three categories according to their functions,and they are: informative text,expressive text and operative text.Informative texts are content-focused,which stress the accuracy in transferring the information.Expressive texts are form-focused,which stress the expression and esthetic of the text.Operative texts are appeal-focused,which stress the effect of the translation versions on readers and the result intended by the author.However,in actual practice,the whole of a text cannot be purely informative,expressive or operative.It always includes the characteristics and functions of the three types and with an emphasis on one of them.The source text of the translation project is tourism material,and most of the content is objective description and introduction of those ancient towns,which is mainly informative.There are also operative texts that appeal tourists.What's more,there are expressive texts such as poems and couplets that are related to the scenic spots.Peter Newmark pointed out that different translation strategies should be used for different text types: communicative translation is used for informative text and operative text,while semantic translation for expressive text.The source text is mainly informative,so the translator mainly adopted communicative translation in the translation process.As for the translation of other text types,different translation strategies should be used.For example,the translator used semantic translation for expressive text.Under the guidance of Text Typology,the thesis compared and studied the translation of culture-loaded words and long sentences respectively from lexical level and syntactic level.And it also concluded the translation method employed in the translation.The translation report was expected to give references for translators who decide to translate the same kind of texts.