Explicitation In Chinese-English Translation Of Cultural Texts ——A Case Study Of The History And Culture Of Beijing(Chapter Six)

As China is playing an increasingly important role in the international community,more and more foreign friends would like to know more about the country and the country’s culture.A new trend of learning about Chinese culture is coming because the Beijing holds the 24th Winter Olympics.This needs a new version of translation in the field of Chinese culture.The History and Culture of Beijing（Chapter Six）introduces the city’s culture and history in Minguo when Beijing was changing from a traditional capital to a modern city.The chapter is composed of three parts,including From Traditional Capital to Modern City,Culture and Era Characteristics and New Cultural Space.The contents are rarely talked about in other books of this field,so this translation may compensate for it to some extent.The History and Culture of Beijing（Chapter Six）is a cultural text,so it carries many culture-loaded words.There are also a lot of categories words and metaphors in the text.If all the three types of words are translated to English directly,the target text will be confusing.For syntax,the text carries many long sentences.If such sentences are not analyzed and segmented,the translated version will be vague.There is also a problem of cohesion and coherence between complete sentences.By exploring existing researches about these problems,the translator finds that explicitation is a valid way to solve the problems.The dissertation is based on Vinay and Darbelnet’s classification of explicitation and makes some adjustments because of the features of the text to be translated.The adjusted framework discusses explicitation on three levels,including word,sentence and text.On the level of word,annotation,explanation,paraphrase and ellipsis are introduced to achieve explicitation.The first two skills are mainly used for culture-loaded words while the last two ones are applied to category words or metaphors.On the level of sentence,sentence segmentation and sentence restructuring are used.Sentence cut is based on sense group or subject.Component change and order change are two common ways in restructuring sentences.The two skills aim to make target sentences clear in grammar and logic.On the level of text,skills to increase cohesion and coherence are applied,including adding reference,conjunction and substitution.These skills are to make the logic between sentences explicit.The thesis applies the case study approach.The translator finds that it is valid to use explicitation in translating cultural text from Chinese to English on levels of word,sentence and text.Annotation,explanation,sentence restructuring,adding reference and other skills are useful to achieve explicitation.However,the paper is just a single study and cannot be applied to translating all the cultural texts from Chinese to English.More studies need to be done to get a general conclusion.