English-Chinese Translation Strategies Of Aesthetic Representation In English Novel Old Silk Road

Old Silk Road is the debut work of Brandon Caro,an American writer.It contains many elements of the Silk Road and reveals the local customs and traditions in Afghanistan.After the September 11 attacks,real war scenes of American army in the Afghanistan battlefield are represented in this novel where there are many aesthetic constituents,such as simple and smooth language,vivid characters,exquisite plots,sincerest emotions and deep cultural implications.In order to find whether these aesthetic constituents are reproduced in Chinese translation,14 representative paragraphs with aesthetic features are selected from the novel,and they are translated by 60 translators including English teachers as well as postgraduates and undergraduates majoring in English.Therefore,a sample of 60 Chinese versions of Old Silk Road is established to make statistical analysis by means of translation aesthetics and the method of stratified sampling.The research data indicate that most of Chinese translators are apt to literal translation and only convey the basic meaning of the source text,thus losing the connotations of aesthetic constituents.From their translation practice it can be seen that the main English-Chinese problems come as follows: implications are not conveyed at cultural level,aesthetic features misunderstood at lexical level and image lost at its level.Under the theoretical guidance of translation aesthetics,two corresponding translation strategies can be applied to solving the above-mentioned problems in translation practice,they are thick translation and dynamic imitation.Therefore,the aesthetic constituents of the source text can be preserved,aesthetic connotations and artistic effect of the novel can be retained in the target text.In this way,it will become easier to obtain comparing values of cultures in the aesthetic communication of the novel,and uncover the veil of Chinese culture in the old Silk Road.