A Report On The Translation Of Cultural Anthropology:Tribes,States,and The Global System (Fifth Edition,Chapter Two)

This thesis is a report on a translation project of the book Cultural Anthropology: Tribes,States,and the Global System written by John H.Bodley.The book is a plain expository-writing text,with the formal,academic,and professional writing style.Besides,there are substantial cultural words that convey the meaning of local customs,religious beliefs and cultural conventions.Based on the theory of cultural translation,the translator takes the words and phrases with high frequency and difficulty as the research object,in order to guide the translation practice and explore various strategies and methods adopted in the translation process.Under the guidance of cultural translation theory,the translator attaches importance to cultural information,ethnic culture mentality and writing style of the original text,and discusses how to deliver the exact meaning in respect of cultural words and cultural values.The translator takes the acceptability of readers into consideration and strives to remain the original meaning of the source text.The translator has difficulties in cultural images,polysemes,cultural values,religious and philosophical factors and emotional coloring of words.Under the guidance of cultural translation theory,five strategies are adopted by translator to solve various problems.Initially,the method of explanation is employed to clarify the cultural meaning of the original language.The second method is substitution,it could reach the effect of clearness and coherence through replacement of words.The third one is deculturation,which includes the elimination of cultural meaning in interlingual transformation.In addition,the translator applies the method of conversion in order to transfer the negative meaning of words to the positive ones.Finally,the marginal meaning of words should be given priority and combined with context for consideration in the process of translation.Since English and Chinese are completely two different languages in terms of logical thinking and expression,the translator should fully consider the reader's acceptability in the process of translation.After a long period of translation,the translator has summarized some instructions for further translation and has accumulated much valuable experience,which will help the translator solve the various problems that may arise in the future translation.