A Practical Report On The English-chinese Translation Of The Subtitle Of The Documentary Washington

This report,taking English-Chinese translation of the plain text of the subtitle of the historical documentary Washington as an example and combined with the characteristics of subtitle translation,discusses in detail the difficulties encountered by the translator in the translation process and the translation strategies used.The historical documentary Washington introduces the story of Washington,the founding father of the United States.At present,no Chinese translation of the original subtitles can be found.According to Peter Newmark’s Text Type Theory,the original text is an expressive text,which is formal and rigorous,interspersed with expert comments,character dialogue and narration,and contains a large number of historical events and the mention of historical characters.In order to meet certain requirements put forward by the entruster who regards readers as the center,the translator chooses Variational Translation Theory to guide the subtitle translation practice,and tries to make the audience understand Washington in a “more quick,better and more cost-effective” manner.This practice report consists of five parts: translation preparation,process description,theoretical framework,case analysis and conclusion.In the chapter of case analysis,the translator discusses the relevant translation strategies of Variational Translation Theory from the three levels: lexical level,syntactic level and textual level.From the lexical level,the translator adopts the translation methods of adding and deleting to solve the translation difficulties brought about by some abstract vocabularies of the original text and the background of some characters.Syntactically,the translator uses the translation strategies of editing and narrating to ensure the accurate grasp and smooth expression of meaning groups.From the textual level,the translator integrates the semantics according to the translation strategies of integrating and altering in line with the specific text,so as to make the translation clearer and more understandable and achieve the contextual coherence.Finally,the translator states out the experience gained in this translation practice under the guidance of Variational Translation Theory,in the hope of providing feasible translation methods when translating texts of this kind.