A Textual Comparative Analysis of English Translation Methods for Names in the Two Versions of Shanhaijing-Haineijing from a Cultural Turn Perspective

Abstract

The translation of Shanhaijing into foreign languages has become a crucial link to promote cultural exchange between China and the West. From different cultural environments, different translators will adopt completely different translation methods for the same name contained, such as names of people, places, animals, or even mineral names. This paper employs a textual comparative analysis to examine the translation of proper nouns in the Shanhaijing-Haineijing, compares the translations of Wang Hong and Zhao Zheng’s The Classic of Mountains and Seas: Chinese-English with Anne Birrell’s The Classic of Mountains and Seas from the perspective of Cultural Turn, and explores how these different translation methods affect the readability and cultural transmission of the text in English, aiming to provide new directions and practical methods for the translation of names from Chinese to English in ancient Chinese classics.