Strategies For Translating Culture-Specific Items From Chinese To English:A Case Study Of Excerpts From Chinese Dance

Cultural turn,as a major trend in the translation studies since late 1980s,contributes to the human-to-human exchange between different countries.While research on English-Chinese translation occupied a dominant position in the past,now an increasing number of studies pay more attention to the Chinese-English translated works,most of which focus on traditional Chinese culture.Culture-specific items（CSI）constitute one of the most difficult parts in the translation process,affecting the readers’ understanding of the target culture.Chinese dance is an informative monograph which places traditional Chinese dance in the context of Chinese history,displaying its historical trajectory from ancient times to the present.The biggest challenge to translate the book lies in the fact that it is filled with cultural items and connotations.Thus,this report puts its emphasis on the translation strategy of CSIs in the excerpts.This report is a case study on the translation of excerpts from Chinese Dance.After scrutiny and revision,totally 126 CSIs are identified from the translation.Six strategies from Aixelá’s model on CSI translation are employed,which are orthographic adaptation,linguistic（non-cultural）translation,extratextual gloss and intratextual gloss,limited universalization and deletion,and additional two more are added by the translator herself,namely,direct borrowing from the third language and diversification for classical Chinese based on different translation purposes.Each category is followed by examples and detailed analysis,with variables that affects the choice of translation strategy being examined and discussed.