On Translator's Adaptation And Selection In Translating Social Research Methods

Social Research Methods is a sociology textbook. The purpose of translation is to give reference for teaching and reading in sociology field. The strategy adopted in translation is translator's selective adaptation and adaptive selection based on Professor Hu Gengshen's An Approach to Translation as Adaptation and Selection. In order to make the translation adaptive to the translational eco-environment, three-dimension transformation is used under the translation strategy.There are three dimensions which should be considered in translation. They are linguistic, cultural and communicative dimensions. In linguistic dimension, the position of sentence focus is different in English and Chinese. English uses passive voice more frequently than Chinese to express objectivity and scientificity in the sociology textbook.The use of conjunction is also different. Therefore, adaptive selections to the position of sentence focus are made to incorporate the language form. The employment of active voice is also helpful in translation. And conjunctions can be omitted in translation.Differences between cross-cultural communications are worth concerning. There are many social events, names of places, cultural images in the source text. Literal translation with explanation is used to translate social events in order to offer readers relevant cultural backgrounds. Names of places can be translated according to their pronunciations. The translator uses substitution in dealing with cultural images. Terminologies can be translated directly from existing translations to adapt to the target language communicative environment. The translation method is amplification in dealing with demonstrative pronouns.