A Critical Commentarv On Selected C-E Translation Of Chapter Four(Section 2-4)of The Fire Worship:The Anthropological Studv On The Ritual Of Axi Mijimo

This project is the Chinese-English translation of an excerpt of The Fiire Worship-The Anthropological Study on the Ritual of Axi Miji,mo--the fourth chapter of the book:Ritual and Ecological Expression,which discusses the relationship between the ritual and the ecological environment of the Axi.In recent years,there has been an increasing interest among scholars in studying the ways in which minority ethnic people handle their relations with nature However,there have been few studies on how the ritual activities of these people are or may be related to their ecological environment,and how these activities help them adjust their behaviors in a way to enable them to adapt well to their environment,which makes the text worthwhile to translate and where exactly the significance of this translation project lies.Due to the cultural and informative features of the text,a great deal of preparation has been done to make sure the translation is expressive and faithful.This includes looking up dictionaries for the explanations of the culture-loaded words,searching the Internet for the relevant information,reading the relevant thesis and studies of the Axi's Fire Worshipping ritual to make the translator understand better about the connotations or meanings of the cultural phenomena about the Axi 's ritual and culture in the source text.On the other hand,in coping with the profuse presence of descriptive information and the culture-loaded words which include the names of people(e.g.Zhailao,Bimo),places(e.g.the Mizhi Mountain,the Hongwan Village),activities(e.g.the Mizhi Worshipping Rite)as well as food(e.g.yumai,guozi),in order to preserve the original language style and cultural connotations as well as the uniqueness of the Axi culture,this translation project is finished under the guidance of Communicative Translation and domestication,translation strategies such as literal translation,free translation,transliteration,annotation,combination and divisionIt is hoped that this project may be of benefit to those who have interest in Yunnan's ethnic minority culture,particularly the Axi culture.