An E-C Translation Report On Among The Mongols（Chapters Five To Six）

Among the Mongols is a famous work of James Gilmour,which is about the natural climate,religion,customs,etc.It was first published in 1883 by the Religious Tract Society in London,and there are Japanese translations published by Japanese scholars.The English version of the translator’s translation was republished in 2013.The author had spent more than 20 years in Mongolia since 1870 and shared his experences in his book.The language is simple,plain and natural.The fifth and sixth chapters were chosen as the source text for this translation practice because there is no Chinese version published.The author rode horses to cross the desert to Zhangjiakou,a northern city.The original text is about 7,400 words and the Chinese translation is about 11,000 characters in total.This is a practice report on English-Chinese translation.In the report,the translator focused on analyzing the typical translation difficulties encountered in translation,and also elaborated the translation methods she adopted and proved them with examples.They were elaborated one by one from three aspects: lexis,syntax and discourse.For some common words and place names,the translator used semantic extension and annotation of the word meaning;for some long and complex sentences with prepositions,the sentences were divided and reconstructed;and for some long and complex attributive clauses,the translator renderd the attributive clauses into coordinate clauses and repeated the antecedent and also adopted the method of translating the attributive clauses into adverbial clauses and omitting the antecedent.In order to make the text more cohesive and coherent,the translator also adopted methods,such as substitution and addition of conjunctions.Through this translation practice and report writing,the translator has accumulated relevant vocabulary of Mongolian culture,learned to apply translation theories and translation methods in translation,and it increased the translator’s ability to translate from English to Chinese.Yet there are still limitations in some aspects,such as the connection between theory and practice is not close enough,and the accumulation of professional knowledge is insufficient.Translation is not only the translation of words,but also a kind of cultural transmission and exchange.This translation practice helps to enable target language readers to better understand Mongolian culture in the eyes of Western scholars.