A Translation Report On The Opium War (Section1-3)

This is a translation practice report. The source text is the first three sections of The Opium War1840-1842. These three sections are "Papaver Somniferum","Canton and Macao" and "Managing the Barbarians". The book of The Opium War is mainly about foreigners’life in China in the early19th century, trade between China and foreign countries before and after the Opium War, the missionary work in China and the whole story of the First Opium War. The main content of the excerpts is about the plantation of Papaver Somniferum, the manufacture and trade of opium, foreigners’ life and trade in Canton and Macao, and the way the Qing Government manages the foreigners. The translator takes Skopos Theory as guidance, and determines the translation strategies and methods according to the translation purpose. The purposes of the translator are to translate the history of the Opium War written by the westerner into Chinese accurately, and help the Chinese see China in foreigner’s eyes and look at China’s culture and history from different perspectives. In the course of translation, the translator employs foreignization, and tries to retain the information and linguistic features of the source text. In addition, the translator uses various translation methods to solve the problems. The main translation methods applied in this thesis are back translation, linear translation, inverse translation, division, comprehensive translation and so on.The report consists of four parts. Part one is the introduction of the translation task, including translation background, theory and significance. Part two analyzes the author, content, language style, important points and difficult points of the source text. The third chapter states the strategies and methods employed in the translation, and some case analyses. The last part draws a conclusion of the enlightenments and experience the translator gets from the translation practice, and points out the problems unsolved.