A Report On The Chinese-English Translation Of Sparking:How China Sought Its Path To Rejuvenation(Excerpt) Under The Guidance Of The Skopos Theory

This report is based on the Chinese-English translation practice of the seventh chapter of the book Sparking: How China Sought Its Path to Rejuvenation,The May Fourth Movement.Centered on the patriotic young people’s stories in the May Fourth Movement,the author Liu Tong reproduces the historical figures’ thoughts and actions with abundant details and presents the communists’ choice at the critical moment in a panorama style.While translating such materials,the translator needs to overcome the difficulties in precisely comprehending original historical materials,complete three-step language conversion from classical Chinese to modern Chinese and finally to English,and fully convey the connotation despite the historical and cultural differences.The translation of historical documents provides Western readers with a comprehensive perspective to learn about the Chinese history,the great CPC founding spirit and the indomitable struggle of the Chinese people against imperialism and feudalism.In the translation process,the major difficulties include how to translate expressions with Chinese characteristics,render expressions with strong emotional coloring,restructure the logic of the discourse,and address the literary style.Considering these difficulties,this study explores the solutions based on the combination of three principles and specific translation skills under the guidance of the Skopos Theory put forward by Hans Vermeer.According to the study,for those expressions with Chinese characteristics,translation skills such as amplification and annotation help supplement necessary information for target readers and lower the difficulty of understanding.For conveying emotional expressions,amplification,conversion,adaptation and others help faithfully convey the textual emotion.For logical connection,syntactic restructuring and adding conjunctions or transitional words enable the translation to be better in line with target reader’s habitual expression.This report further demonstrates the Skopos Theory’s guiding role in translating historical materials and other non-fiction works,and summarizes its theoretical implications for translation practice.As a result,this provides referential value to similar translation practice of international publicity materials.