A Report On The E-C Translation Of Negotiation As A Martial Art (Excerpts) From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

With the deepening of economic globalization,many books on economics and management are introduced to Chinese readers from abroad.The author of this report had the honor to participate in the translation project of the first three chapters of Negotiation as a Martial Art,which was commissioned by a faculty member of the School of Business Administration,and the texts of the translation practice were selected by the publisher.Generally speaking,business texts tend to be serious and objective,with few subjective opinions.However,written in the method of narration interspersed with comments,the selected source text for this report appears persuasive,logical,and enlightening,and its linguistic style is light-hearted.Based on these features,the difficulties encountered during the translation process are summarized.At the linguistic level,a certain degree of linguistic ambiguity results in difficulties in translating polysemous words and figurative language.Besides,achieving cohesion and coherence in the text also poses a challenge.Moreover,at the cognitive and cultural levels,the difficulty lies in reducing the burden of understanding for the target readers,mainly embodied in the translation of slangs,terminologies,and coined words.In response to the difficulties mentioned above,Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory is used as the guidance to discuss the linguistic choices and adaptations made during the translation,from the two aspects of communicative contextual correlates of adaptability(physical world,mental world,and social world)and structural objects of adaptability(lexical adaptation,syntactic adaptation,and textual adaption).This report once again testifies that translation is a dynamic process in which continuous linguistic choices should be made on multiple levels.Therefore,translators should give full play to their subjectivity and consider both the original author’s intentions and the target readers’ habits of language use,cognitive level,and emotional expectations.Meanwhile,appropriate translation methods and skills,including literal translation,free translation,omission,annotation,and cultural substitution,can be adopted accordingly to ensure the accuracy of the translation and make the translation more acceptable to the target readers.