A Report On C-E Translation Of The Excerpts From Xiangtan Stories

With the continuous improvement of China's international status and influence,the practical promotion of soft-power of culture is imperative.Literature is an essential carrier of culture,and the translation of literary works is of great benefit to the advancement of the soft-power of culture.As a new type in literature,the short-short story plays a vital role in its literary value.Therefore,the author chooses a short-short story as the translation text to help promote Chinese culture's soft power.The original material is entitled Xiangtan Stories,written by Nie Xinsen and published by People's Literature Publishing Press in 2018.The writer chooses Crazy Qiu,Underglaze,Scissors Old Woman,Facial Makeup,Retreat Record as original materials.Those are stories about wisdom and philosophy.Some of them are about Chinese classical philosophy,and others are about Chinese folk arts,such as facial makeup,book repairing,ceramics,and paper-cut.The author has embodied the wisdom of Chinese studies through his literary and artistic writings.Through the stories of such technicians,he has portrayed the exquisite techniques and craftsmanship of the craftsmen.Those are stories that happened in the ancient Xiangtan city in the late Qing Dynasty.This book is full of humorous and short stories.It is an excellent primary book for foreign readers to learn about China.The translation is guided by Eugene Nida's Functional Equivalence translation theory.The writer aims to spread culture in Xiangtan to the world and help foreign readers to have a more natural way to know about China.This book involves a lot of Chinese cultural and traditional knowledge,so how to accurately convey cultural knowledge to readers has become the difficulty.The literal translation method cannot accurately convey all the author's thoughts due to the differences between Chinese and English in languages and culture.However,if the translation is guided by Eugene Nida's Functional Equivalence translation theory,the problem can be solved.This theory emphasizes whether the reader can receive accurate knowledge or not.It doesnot ask for the word to word translation.Therefore,the writer applies this theory as the guiding theory.The writer analyzes the original from vocabulary,sentence,and text and decides to utilize methods such as shift,paraphrase,addition,omission,division combination,and adaptation to translate those stories.The writer is intended to contribute to bringing high-quality Chinese short-short stories to the world.