Modern Social Science Research

In recent years, with the deepening of Chinas international cultural exchanges, museum commentary texts have played an increasingly vital role as a crucial medium for cultural communication. The quality of their translation directly impacts the international dissemination of Chinas outstanding traditional culture. Guided by cultural translation theory, this study systematically analyzes issues in the English translations of Suzhou Museums commentary texts. The research identified four main problems: 1) cultural connotation loss due to omission in translation; 2) translation inaccuracies arising from cultural differences; 3) inappropriate lexical choices; and 4) Chinese-oriented translation thinking. To address these issues, the paper proposes four improvement strategies: 1) adopting "transliteration + annotation" to preserve culture-specific items; 2) implementing "creative translation" for East-West historical comparisons; 3) employing "amplification" to supplement implicit cultural information; and 4) utilizing "paraphrasing" to resolve cultural image conflicts. The findings demonstrate that flexible translation strategies guided by cultural translation theory can effectively bridge linguistic and cultural gaps, facilitate accurate transmission of Chinese cultural essence in cross-cultural communication of museum commentaries, and thereby enhance Chinas cultural soft power.

Cultural dissemination; Commentary translation; Suzhou Museum; Cultural translation theory