A Report On Translation Of Elements Of International Law (Chapter Two)

Elements of International Law is a systematic and whole work of western international law,which has strong time features and is extremely in line with the evolution trend of international politics and economy at that time.This paper is about the translation report of Chapter Two of Elements of International Law.The book written by Henry Wheaton was published in 1836.It has a long history with many ancient vocabularies and its grammar is quite different from today’s.And it belongs to legal text.Therefore,specific terms,loanwords and long and difficult sentences are also common in the original text.Its only Chinese translated version made by American missionary Ding Weiliang was published in 1864 whose language doesn’t belong to modern Chinese.It is an incomplete translation script.This translation report is based on Professor Li Changshuan’s “Comprehension,Expression and Adaption” Framework(later on CEA Framework).By consulting materials and combining them with practice,the writer has learned that: in the comprehension part,with the help of internal and external tools,one can understand the original text with critical thinking which is a different perspective.In the expression phase,the concise English should be output and improve the expression quality.Both the true meaning and style of the original text ought to be kept.Another goal is to make the target readers feel the same as the source readers do;In the adaptation,the flexible adaptation should be made according to the translation purpose,the structure of Chinese sentences and the general background of the activity,but we can’t seek far and neglect what lies close at hand by adjusting the structure of the translation script freely,overshooting the mark.This paper is made up of five parts.The first part includes a brief introduction to the translation project and Henry Wheaton and the layout of this paper.The second part is the description of the translation process.In this part,the writer analyzed the text type and language feature of the original text and introduced some translation tools used in the translation process,background knowledge,and difficult and important points.In the third part,the writer introduced CEA Framework in detail and the reason why the writer applied this framework to report this translation project.The fourth part is case analysis.The writer analyzed translation cases by reviewing problems met during translation and put relevant solutions.The last part is conclusion including achievements and experience accumulated in the process of writing the paper,refection and suggestions for further study.