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

This thesis is a proposal of a translation practice.The source text of the project is selected from the second part of When Breath Becomes Air-written by Paul Kalanithi,an American neurosurgeon-which narrates the worst part of the author?s life when he was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer at the age of 36.But this work is not just about cancer.It?s the tale of hardship and struggle that resonate.In the shadow of the terminally,the author,after a period of despondency and withdrawal,pulled himself together,and started to pursue the meaning of life,and ultimately learned to face up to death bravely.As a typical autobiography,this work,with its use of naturalized and literary language,is both mundane and elegant.Thus,one important task for the translator during the translation process is to accurately convey the true connotation of the original text while remain its style and beauty.This report is guided by Nida's functional equivalence theory.In the process of translation,the biggest problem that the author encounters is how to deal with the differences between Chinese and Western and convey accurately the meaning and connotation of the original text so that target receptors? response can be substantially the same as that of the receptors of the original language.To solve this,the author have taken use of Nida's functional equivalence theory as a guide,and made a profound and through analysis of the translation strategies and tools used from the aspects of word equivalence,sentence equivalence,stylistic equivalence and cultural equivalence,which,to a certain extent,have solved those most difficult problems confronted.This report consists of five chapters.The first chapter is an overview of the translation practice,which introduces the background,the source text and its author,the stylistic features of the source text and the whole structure of the thesis.The second chapter describes the translation process which includes the reasons for choosing this source text,the translation tools used,the translation plan and the proofreading process.The third chapter is a brief introduction of functional equivalence theory.The fourth chapter is case study,which mainly talks about the translation practice and the strategies applied.The last chapter summarizes some experience and inspirations during this translation practice and some problems to be solved in the future.