A Practice Report On The E-C Translation Of The Dawn Of Human Culture （Excerpts） Under The Guidance Of Chesterman’s Translation Norm Theory

This report mainly discusses the translation of paleoanthropology texts based on the first three chapters and part of chapter four of The Dawn of Human Culture（2002）,under the guidance of Chesterman’s translation norm theory.The source text explores the human evolution by reexamining archaeological evidence and introducing new studies on human brains,and elaborates on why humans think and behave in far more sophisticated ways than before.As an academic text,The Dawn of Human Culture（2002）is characterized with professionalism,diverse sentence structures,and rigorous logic.Based on the features of the source text and the difficulties encountered in the translation practice,the translator turns to Chesterman’s translation norm theory for reference.Translation norms,strategies,and values are explored by Chesterman from the perspective of cultural evolution.Under his theoretical framework,expectancy norms and professional norms are encompassed in translation norms,with professional norms being divided into the accountability norm,the communicative norm,and the relation norm.Meanwhile,translation strategies on syntactic,semantic,and pragmatic levels,as well as specific translation skills,are proposed to conform to translation norms,and to solve translation problems,which makes the theory highly systematical and practical.With detailed case analysis,this report discusses how the translator employs translation norm theory as guiding principle at macro level,and adopts the three strategies,together with specific translation techniques at micro level,in order to deal with translation problems,providing an ideal target text that conforms to translation norms.This report is expected to provide cases for other translators when dealing with similar subjects.