Translation Strategies of the Titles of Ancient Chinese Books: A Case Study of The Brush Talks from the Dream Brook

Abstract

Ancient Chinese books envelope Chinese culture and wisdom, and the titles of them serve as a window for readers to have a glimpse of their essence. A good title provides information like the topic or theme of a book along with aesthetic reading experience. In cross-culture exchanges, to intrigue the interest of readers or give a clue of the ancient books as to what they are looking for, the good translation of titles of ancient Chinese books finds its significance in this respect. This paper focuses on the translation strategies of the titles of ancient Chinese books from Chinese to English. The paper figures out the definition of ancient Chinese books from the perspective of history before it goes further to explore the classification and features of their titles. Given that the case studies are based on the examples from the complete English version of The Brush Talks from the Dream Brook by Wang Hong, this paper briefly introduces the book and its author, followed by the translation principles and strategies of the titles of ancient Chinese books. Semantic and communicative translation strategies are to be discussed with specific translation methods respectively. It is hoped that this paper could help readers realize the importance of title translation and provides some suggestions on the translation strategies of titles of ancient Chinese books in order to be accepted by target readers.