On Translating Ancient Chinese Literati Painters' Biographies From The Perspective Of The Translator's Subjectivity

During the glorious and long history of thousands of years our nation has accumulated rich cultural heritage.Literati painting is an important part of the cultural heritage with unique charms.It refers to paintings produced by ancient Chinese scholars and writers,as distinguished from those by craftsmen or court-hired artists.The literati painting embodies the unity of the painter's philosophical thought,his pursuit of life and his painting techniques.In this way,it reflects the characteristic of integration in Chinese culture to the utmost degree.Since the beginning of the 21st century,our country has put forward the cultural strategy of spreading Chinese culture globally.It provides a historical opportunity for overseas promotion of Chinese literati painting.Translating biographies of ancient Chinese literati painters can not only recommend to the world some outstanding painters and their paintings,but also promote Chinese culture as a whole.It will promote the cultural communication between China and foreign countnies ranging from the exchange of symbolic knowledge to communication in spiritual field.For the purpose of overseas promotion of literati painting,the author of the present thesis chose the C-E translation of select ed chapters from Xu Wei in China:Life and Art as a ttanslation task and completed the thesis on the basis of the translation practice.The thesis mainly discusses how the translator's subjectivity plays its role in selecting suitable source texts,and how the subjectivity works in the application of translation strategies and methods.It first introduces the background of the thesis and the process of translation.As the analysis of the parallel text is a key step in the preparation of C-E translation,the present author first analyzes The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting(???????)translated by Mai-mai Sze as the parallel text.Then she introduces the theory of translator's subjectivity,based on which she analyzes the selecting progress of source texts and the application of translation strategies and methods.Three major strategies are proposed:highlighting the most influential philosophical thought,assisting literati painting appreciation,and highlighting stylistic variation.This thesis includes the strategies and methods of dealing with historical background knowledge and cultural images as well.