Translating Chu Lacquer Wares

As the precious wealth of human civilization, Chu lacquer wares are the carrier that reflects the long history and culture of Chu State or Chu region. The translation of Chu lacquer wares texts in museums plays a very important role in the exchange and demonstration of Chu culture. This paper tries to make it clear about the structural features of Chu lacquer wares texts in museums: the picture of Chu lacquer ware; the name of Chu lacquer ware; the dynasty of the Chu lacquer ware; the unearthed place of Chu lacquer ware; the dimension and background introduction of Chu lacquer ware. Based on the analysis of “texts in museums” rather than “museum as text”, we seek to explore distinct characteristics of the language of Chu lacquer wares texts in museums that are objective, explanatory, communicative and concise. Through investigating the translation of Chu lacquer wares texts in museums, we are able to observe that the main translation methods of each component are transliteration, literal translation, free translation, addition and omission in translation, and a variety of translation methods. It is noted that literal and free translation are popular among various methods. Considering the cultural and historical factors, adopting transliteration mainly by Chinese pinyin is acceptable to handle some special place names, dates, dynasties and so on.