1st Edition

Thinking Chinese Translation A Course in Translation Method: Chinese to English

By Valerie Pellatt, Eric T. Liu Copyright 2010
    240 Pages
    by Routledge

    240 Pages
    by Routledge

    Thinking Chinese Translation is a practical and comprehensive course for advanced undergraduates and postgraduate students of Chinese.

    Thinking Chinese Translation explores the ways in which memory, general knowledge, and creativity (summed up as ‘schema’) contribute to the linguistic ability necessary to create a good translation. The course develops the reader’s ability to think deeply about the texts and to produce natural and accurate translations from Chinese into English.

    A wealth of relevant illustrative material is presented, taking the reader through a number of different genres and text types of increasing complexity including:

    • technical, scientific and legal texts
    • journalistic and informative texts
    • literary and dramatic texts.

    Each chapter provides a discussion of the issues of a particular text type based on up-to-date scholarship, followed by practical translation exercises. The chapters can be read independently as research material, or in combination with the exercises. The issues discussed range from the fine detail of the text, such as punctuation, to the broader context of editing, packaging and publishing translations. Major aspects of teaching and learning translation, such as collaboration, are also covered.

    Thinking Chinese Translation is essential reading for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of Chinese and translation studies. The book will also appeal to a wide range of language students and tutors through the general discussion of the principles and purpose of translation.

    Contents  Introduction  History, theory and practice of Chinese translation  The rationale and structure of Thinking Chinese Translation  1 Translation as a process  Formal schema: decoding the marks on the page   Content schema: knowledge and experience  Implication and Inference The benefits of collaborative thinking Reflective learning  2 Formal Schema: the framework: titles, sentences, punctuation and paragraphs  eadings and titles: signposting the text  Sentences: grammatical structures  Sentences: discoursal structures  Punctuation: loaded with meaning  Paragraphs: fleshing out the structure  Content schema: knowledge, preparation and collaboration  Practical 2.1 Text structure and names Practical 2.2 Background knowledge of China  3  Growing the schema from small beginnings  translating formulaic texts  Content, context and register in the formulaic text  Practical 3.1 Certificates  texts without sentences dictionaries and glossaries  Practical 3.2 Chinese restaurant menu  Practical 3.3 Translating Accounts  4 Translating technical and scientific texts  Technical translation: What is it? Who does it?  Formal schema in technical and scientific translation  Content schema: understanding the processes  Practical 4 Technical exercises  5 Medical translation: persuading, reporting, and diagnosing  in the Western tradition  Public health information leaflets  Practical 5.1 Persuading the public: health leaflets  Translating medical reports  Practical 5.2 Patient’s notes  6 Translating Traditional Chinese Medicine  The underlying principles of Traditional Chinese  Medicine   The language of Traditional Chinese Medicine  Practical 6.1 Treatment: acupuncture and smoking  Practical 6. 2 Textbook description of cancers  7  Translating for legal purposes   Variations in legal systems and language  the authority of legal translation and the responsibility of the translator  legal texts as speech acts  Sentence structures  Verb forms   Terminology  Logical relations   Culture and ideology in legal translation  Domestic law translated for foreign visitors  International law: UN drafting   Practical 7.1 Analyzing bilingual laws   Practical 7.2Translating domestic law on religion   miscellaneous legal documents  Practical 7.3 Translator’s statement   Practical 7.4 Report of legal proceedings   Practical 7.5 Witness statement  8  Translating the business world: trust and obligation  The world of business mOU, MOA and Contract  Tenses   Idiomatic usage  Complex sentences  Distinguishing the Parties  Practical 8.1Translating a Memorandum of Agreement: Proofreading and Forensics  Practical 8.2 Translating a contract  9 Translating the nation  Addressing the nation  Translating ideology and power  China’s special brand of power  The narrative of China’s official discourse  Commissioning the translation  Addressing the people: the group, the individual and  deixis in discourse  choice of lexis Metaphor and epithet  Numbers in Chinese official discourse  China addressing the world  Formality and courtesy  Friends and brothers  Inclusiveness  All things positive  All things great  Practical 9.1  Practical 9.2 Addressing the world Practical 9.3 Addressing a developing nation 10  Author-translator collaboration: a case study of reportage  WORKING TOGETHER: Interview with Xinran and Nicky Harman  11 Paratextual analysis: a case study of autobiographical writing  re-adjusting the formal schema for the foreign  reader: zhao Ziyang's diaries Practical 11.1 Transforming paratextual features for the target audience  Translating the culture of the past: Zhang Xianliang’s autobiographical writing  Practical 11.2 Translating culture across time and space  12 Translating fiction  Narration  Translating chengyu  Dialogue  Portraying character through dialogue  Expressing inner thoughts through dialogue  Relationship and interaction in dialogue  Insults  Description and depiction Genre within genre  Practical 12.1 Translating description, emotion and reflection  Practical 12.2 Translating the frustration of youth  13 Translation of traditional poetry  Formal schema in Chinese poetry  Content schema in Chinese poetry  Trade-off in language structure   Translating the past: allusion and culturally specific items punctuation and space in poems  Singular or plural, masculine or feminine?  The influence of Ezra Pound  Practical 13.1 Translating a shi  Practical 13. 2 Translating a ci  Practical 13.3 Translating with footnotes  14 Translating twentieth century poetry Translating Guo Moruo: the new poetry of the self  Western cultural allusion in Guo Moruo’s poetry  Personal pronouns and repetition  Sky Dog  Practical 14. 1 Discussion of Sky Dog source and target text  Translating the surrealism of Yang Lian  The Composer’s Tower  Practical 14.2 Discussion of The Composer’s Tower source and target text Postscript  Glossary  Appendix  References  Index

    Biography

    Valerie Pellatt and Eric T. Liu are both based at Newcastle University. Valerie Pellatt is Lecturer in Chinese Interpretation and Translation and Tin-Kun Liu is Senior Lecturer and Head of Translation and Interpreting Studies.