A Report On Translation Of Preparing For The Speaking Tasks Of The TOEFL IBT Test: An Investigation Of The Journeys Of Chinese Test Takers From The Perspective Of Communicative Translation Theory

This report is based on the English-Chinese translation practice of Preparing for the Speaking Tasks of the TOEFL i BT Test: An Investigation of the Journeys of Chinese Test Takers,a research report published by Educational Testing Service(ETS).The source text examined the experiences of Chinese test takers and teachers who were preparing for the TOEFL i BT speaking tasks,in order to investigate the usefulness of various test preparation activities,and the relationship between preparation practice and test performance.In this way,the Chinese version of the text helps stakeholders have a deeper understanding of TOEFL i BT speaking tasks and test preparation programs,and provides a reference for Chinese test takers and teachers.According to text typology,the source text was categorized as an informative text in the academic area.Therefore,the communicative translation principle put forward by Newmark was employed as the guidance of this translation practice.Communicative translation indicates that translators should pay attention to conveying the original information rather than sticking to the wording or structure forms of the source language,in order to provide a more accessible translation for target readers.Through combining the guiding theory with typical cases,this report demonstrates the translation methods utilized to tackle the translation difficulties during the entire process.Specifically speaking,at the lexical level,terminologies,stance markers and pronouns were commonly used in the source text,and the translator adopted the methods of diction,annotation,omission and conversion to process these words.At the syntactical level,the translator made syntactical conversions for nominalization structures,and changed the voice of passive sentences.For complex sentences,multiple methods were selected based on specific contexts,involving synchronizing translation,reversing translation,splitting translation and recasting translation.At the textual level,the translator employed the skills with cohesion and coherence to adjust the translated text and enhance the logical connection in the academic discourse.The demonstration of the entire translation process is expected to provide a useful reference for future translation practice of academic texts.This translation report consists of five chapters.The first chapter briefly introduces the background,significance and objectives of this translation practice,as well as the content of the source text and the framework of this report.The second chapter gives an overview of the translation process,including pre-translation preparations,during-translation procedures,and post-translation modifications.The third chapter illustrates the theories of text typology,semantic translation and communicative translation,as well as the instructive significance of communicative translation principle for this translation project.The fourth chapter combines the guiding theory with typical cases at the lexical,syntactical,and textual levels.The translation difficulties and corresponding strategies are presented in this part.The last chapter summarizes reflections of the translator,limitations of this translation program,and suggestions for future translation practice.