Message Delivery Problems In Biographies Translation And The Solving Strategies

Biographies provide readers with various historical and cultural information as well as aesthetic enjoyment,boasting characteristics of both literary text and non-literary text.The translation of the biographies of Chinese historical and cultural figures can contribute to the global transmission of Chinese culture.To successfully introduce life stories of influential Chinese figures to non-Chinese speakers in such translation works,the messages in the target language need to reach the standard of being precise,intact and comprehensible for the target readers.Biographies contain a vast amount of different types of messages with complex logic and can be defined as informational text according to Reiss' s type of text theory.It can be challenging for translators to reach the message delivery standard in consideration of obstacles such as vague writing of the source text writers,target text readers' lack of cultural background information and the lingual difference between English and Chinese.This thesis analyzes examples from the translation of THE NINTH PANCHEN LAMA A BIOGRAPHY and discusses typical problems in message delivery that emerged in the project.It summarizes strategies that can help translators to solve similar problems by comparing first draft translation and the revised version.Message delivery problems in this project can be divided into three kinds: the ambiguity of factual information,the incompleteness of the message and obscurity in logic.This thesis puts forward to strategies that translators can use to solve these problems: first,correct ambiguity arouse from vague writing of the source texts by analyzing its historical contexts and re-express the real information the source texts intend to deliver;second,reveal underlying cultural meanings for the target readers based on reasonable conjecture of their background information;third,add proper cohesive devices to explicate logics between messages for target readers.