A Report On The E-C Translation Of Beyond Borders:Stories Of Yunnanese Chinese Migrants Of Burma (Chapter 3) From The Perspective Of Newmark’s Translation Theory

This is a report on the E-C translation of Chapter 3,Pursuit of Ambition: Father and Son,excerpted from Beyond Borders: Stories of Yunnan Migrants in Burma.Written by a prominent anthropologist,Wen-qin Chang,the book is an essential ethnography.The author presents the migration history and transnational trading experiences of Yunnan Chinese migrants of Burma by taking a first-person narrative approach.Unlike other works concerning Southeastern China,this book focuses on a southwestern region-Yunnan and illustrates Yunnanese migrants drifting farther away to Burma on an overland route,then into Thailand,Taiwan,Guangzhou,Hong Kong,and other places.Furthermore,the “borders” they cross are not only the boundaries but also age,religion,social class,or even gender etc.The book also explores the cultural ties and social mechanisms that bind the “Yunnanese” communities.In short,this work contributes greatly to the studies on overseas Chinese,Southeast Asian,China-Burma relations,and Yunnan in the southwest frontier.The selected chapter mainly talks about the migration experiences of the father,Mr.Li and his son,Guoguang from Shan State in Burma to Thailand and Chinese Taiwan.The author integrates oral history with letters and sheds light on the entanglements of three generations from 1960 to 1980,showing the macro and complex political and economic background through personal feelings,emotions,memories,and survival strategies.As anthropology is a mixture of objectivity and subjectivity,the translation reproduces the informative and expressive functions of the original text to target readers from the perspective of Newmark’s Translation Theory.Therefore,in translation practice,semantic translation is applied to the translation of such objective descriptions as author academic accounts.In contrast,communicative translation is used to translate subjective life stories.The translator benefits a lot from this project.Hopefully,it can offer some practical approaches for relevant translations of ethnography in the days to come.