A Report On The Translation Of When Breath Becomes Air(Part 2)

This is a report on the English-Chinese translationof the book When Breath Becomes Air,a best seller,published by Random House in 2016.The writer Paul Kalanithi is an American neurosurgeon who worked for Stanford Hospital.In this book which was written from Paul's personal experience of suffering from lung cancer,he narrated the process of how he faced life and death and his own reflection on life,medicine,love and hope,which is thought-provoking,and deeply touching.Motivated by the spirit and energy from the writer,the translator intends to bring the positive energy to the reader in China by translating this book.The translation practice is under the guidance of Functional Equivalence Theory introduced by American translation theorist Eugene Nida.Functional Equivalence Theory proposes two sorts of equivalence: formal equivalence and functional equivalence.Functional Equivalence requires that the response of the TL readers should be substantially the same as that of the SL readers.At least the translation should be able to shun the TL reader's misunderstanding.On the basis of functional equivalence,the author intensively analyses the source text from three aspects including lexicon,syntax,and culture.And in light of the acceptability of the TL readers,the source text is flexibly translated with multiple methods.To deal with the language differences,the author utilizes a series of translation methods including free translation,division,and lexical conversion.In terms of cultural factors,the principle of translation is the combination of domestication and foreignization.The former is used to facilitate the TL readers' understanding,and the latter is adopted when culture,such as the religious one,is crucial to the translation.