A Report On The E-C Translation Of The Biographical Text Architects Of An American Landscape (Excerpts)

This report is about English-Chinese translation of three chapters from Architects of an American Landscape.The selected text introduces the growing experiences of two famous American architects and their stories of building classic American buildings.This book belongs to biographical literature,which has its own unique characteristics,namely historicity and literariness.Biographical texts do not only convey information,but also have some literary figures,so the translation of biographical texts should be handled flexibly.According to Reiss’ text typology theory,a text has three types: informative text,expressive text and operative text.Biographical texts are between informative text and expressive text,and may be mixed with operative text.The translator believes that the biography belongs to a mixed type of text with mainly informative text and supplemented by expressive and operative text.Therefore,the appropriate translation strategies are chosen according to the type of text.In the source text,there are many western customs,place names,and names of historical figures,which are not known to the target language readers.Therefore,when translating the informative text,the translator uses the strategies of adding footnotes and amplification,and chooses descriptive vocabulary to enhance the readability of the text.The translation strategy for expressive text is to preserve the form of the figure of speeches and the euphemisms through domestication to keep the author’s writing form as much as possible.The translation strategy for operative text is to use emphatic words and to apply certain words to create vibes.So it can make the target language readers feel the same as the source language readers.This report discusses the guiding significance and specific application of text typology theory in the translation process of biographical texts,to improve the translator’s understanding and application of this translation theory,and to explore the advantages of the theory in the translation of biographical texts with typical examples in translation practice.And hopefully,it can serve as a reference for future biography translations.