A Critical Commentary On C-E Translation Of Chapter 7(Section1)of Fire Worship:An Anthropological Study On The Axi's Mijimo Ritual

This translation report is written on the basis of a C-E translation project the translator has accomplished of an excerpt from the book Fire Worship:An Anthropological Study on the Axi's Mijimo Ritual.It consists of two parts:the translation and a critical commentary that sums up what the translator thinks to be important in executing a project of this kind,including the translation strategies and approaches that can be applied.The book selected for the project is a probe into the Axi's fire-worship ritual from the observer'^perspective.As such it explores the origin of the ritual and the collective memory behind it,and interprets its relationship with ecological practices,the symbols and their implications,and by doing so tries to uncover what lies deep in the Axi people's thoughts and emotions.Under the influence of government policies and social-psychological factors,the ritual has undergone a change from Mijimo to fire worship.The excerpted text is the seventh chapter(Section 1)of the book,"Re-ritualization and De-sanctification of the Ritual",an overview of how the ritual has changed from Mijimo to fire worship in the past decade.As Skopos Theory indicates,translation is a purposeful activity,the execution of the project is for the benefit of those English-speaking readers with interest in traditional rituals in general,and in studies of the Axi culture in particular.It is also hoped that the project may serve as a reference for translators struggling with C-E translation of culture-loaded words,ethnic culture and anthropological report,that it may provide substantial information about the Axi culture for anthropologists and foreigners who are interested in ethnic cultures of Yunnan,and that it may contribute to the promulgation of Yunnan's diversified ethnic cultures to the world and to the promotion of cross-cultural understanding and communication between Yunnan and surrounding countries and regions.Guided by Skopos Theory,many translation strategies and approaches are applied,including transliteration,transliteration with annotation,conversion,amplification,omission,restructuring and explication,to make the English text more eligible to target readers.