A Report On The Chinese Translation Of The Science Of Families(Excerpts) From The Perspective Of Translation Norms Theory

The Science of Families is a special edition of Time in 2018.It presents readers with distinct stories of Western families and it is a typically informative text.With vivid examples,humorous language and many idioms and slangs,the special edition focuses on the evolution of Western family model and the important factors affecting it.In the translation project,the translator translates the introduction and the first three chapters of this work.By translating the stories and experiences narrated in the special edition,it is possible for the target readers to have a deep understanding of the evolution of Western family model,to clarify the characteristics and differences between the Eastern and Western family cultures,and to provide a new corpus and material for study in this field,as well as to provide useful references for solving the problems that exist in today’s families.This report is guided by Toury’s Translation Norms Theory,which is target-languageoriented and divides norms into three categories,namely,preliminary norms,initial norms and operational norms.This report focuses on how to apply this theory to translate informative texts and how it can help solve the difficulties in translation.The report is divided into five chapters,with chapter 1 providing an introduction to the translation task,including the background,purpose and significance and the source text.Chapter 2 focuses on the translation process,including preparation of theories before translation,experience gained and difficulties encountered in the translation process and ways to solve them.Chapter 3 explores the significance and feasibility of Translation Norms Theory to this translation practice.Chapter 4 is case analysis,in which typical cases in translation practice are collected to illustrate how the theory guides the translator to finish the translation.Chapter 5 includes the summary of the report and the reflections.Through translation practice,it is believed that Translation Norms Theory can guide the translation of such texts,especially from both macro and micro levels to guide which translation strategies and methods should be applied throughout the translation process.The translator faithfully follows the principles of informative text and strives to achieve the matching of English and Chinese expressions,and the difficult points in the practice are successfully solved.Translation Norms Theory emphasizes both adequacy and acceptability of the translation and fully guarantees that target readers can obtain an accurate and clear translation.Examples at lexical,syntactic and stylistic levels are analyzed in the report.At lexical level,translation skills like conversion of part of speech,repetition,amplification are adopted.At syntactic level,conversion of sentence order,division and combination are used in the translation.At stylistic level,rhetorical devices,slangs and idioms are often translated through free translation.Those strategies and skills make the translation smooth and easy to understand,which helps readers understand different family stories.It is hoped that this translation report can provide feasible guidance and suggestions for future EnglishChinese translation of informative cultural texts.