A Report On The Translation Of A Study On The Conceptionology Of Ancient Chinese Fictions(Chapter One)

With greater economic strength and increasing international influence,China now turns to take the strategy of “going out” and attaches great importance to spreading time-honored,glorious Chinese culture.As one of the gems of Chinese culture,ancient Chinese fiction enjoys growing popularity with foreign readers.The original text of this translation practice is derived from The Conceptionology of Ancient Chinese Fictions by Ma Ruifang,This book explores the development of ancient Chinese fiction and offers a detailed study on its art of conception,carrying high academic value.This translation practice takes the skopos theory of German Functional School as its theoretical framework.This theory,proposed by Hans.J.Vermeer,takes the translation study out of the constraint of the original text-oriented theory and points out that it is the purpose that determines translation strategies and approaches.Vermeer also puts forward three rules that the translation activity needs to follow: skopos rule,coherence rule and fidelity rule,among which the first is the top-ranking one.From the perspective of functionalists skopos theory,this report mainly discusses the translation of Chinese culture-loaded words,the translation of four-character words,and the translation of sentences.According to the purpose of this translation practice--to spread ancient Chinese fiction and promote cross-cultural exchanges--and the specific language features of the original text,the translator takes different translation strategies and methods.In dealing with the Chinese culture-loaded words with distinctive cultural connotation,the translator chooses the approaches of transliteration,transliteration adding annotation,literal translation,literal translation adding annotation and free translation.In translating the four-character words,the author takes the methods of literal translation and free translation.As for the translation of sentence,the translator,taking the differences between Chinese and English into account,chooses various methods including adjustment of word order,addition,omission,sentence restructuring,and paraphrasing.Through the analysis of translation cases and process,the author learns that before translating the translator must firstly determine the translation purpose,understand target readers' needs and expectations for target texts,and then adopt different translation strategies and methods according to different word characteristics.Only in this way can we achieve the cross-cultural communication.This report,based on the translation of the first chapter of The Conceptionology of Ancient Chinese Fictions,consists of four parts.The first part gives an introduction of this translation task,including its source,the brief description of this book,and the meaning of this project.The second part deals with the translation process,including the preparation before translation,the modification of the first and second drafts,and the analysis and embellishment of the final draft.The third part,which is the main body of this paper,offers twenty-eight typical examples as case analysis.In the fourth part,the author sums up the unsolved problems and lessons as well as the prospect for the future work.