Translation Strategies For Long Sentences In Social Science Text Under The Guidance Of Translation Variation Theory

Translation variation,also called “non-complete translation” or “non-full translation”,has developed from complete translation.Inspired by Yan Fu’s translation thought,Huang Zhonglian has remained committed to studying Yan’s thought and put forward the concept of translation variation theory at the beginning of this century.In his book Translation Variation Theory,he systematically introduced seven appropriate adaptation approaches and twelve translation varieties.The source text of this report is excerpted from the book When Mathematics Goes to the Polls,written by Vicector Torre.The source text belongs to social science text,which usually possesses three distinctive features: technical terms,idioms and long sentences.Therefore,flexible translation methods are indispensable during the translation so as to improve the readability of the target text as well as the receptive effect of the target readers.Translation variation theory is suitable for this kind of text.What these appropriate adaptation approaches(now are eight approaches,including addition,deletion,edition,narration,condensation,combination,reformation,imitation)can do is to translate the information of the source text selectively so that the special needs of target readers can be satisfied.As for this translation material,there are a large number of long sentences,among which adverbial clauses and noun clauses are frequently used.Therefore,the translator adopts three appropriate adaptation approaches from translation variation theory to translate the text,i.e.“edition”,“combination”,“reformation”.During the process of translating,the translator took the Chinese logic into account to convey the information of the original text more accurately and improve the quality of translation.It is expected that the report will be helpful to other translators in dealing with such text in the future.