A Report On The Translation Of Explorations In Empirical Translation Process Research(Chapter 6 & Chapter 13)

This is a translation project report for the book Explorations in Empirical Translation Process Research written by Michael Carl,a professor at Kent State University in America.The book from which the source text is selected involves 15 chapters,which focus on various aspects of translation including the study of machine translation(MT),translation unit and segmentation patterns,and inquiries into user activity data(UAD),alignment units and translation entropy,etc.,involving hotly-debated topics in translation.It was published by Springer-Verlag in 2021,and according to the translator’s survey,no Chinese translation has been published yet.The source text,consisting of two chapters of this academic monograph,is a piece of argumentative writing which has standardized format and adheres to the publishing norms of academic work.It investigates the value of translation entropy and the relationship between computation and representation by making use of empirical research methods,and makes deductions as well as initial conclusions based on the data collected.In terms of the writing style,it applies plain,concise,and rigorous language and is highly logical in expressing ideas.All of these features have on the one hand,render the source text with readability and academic value,and on the other hand cause trouble to E-C translation with the translation of terminology,passive sentences as well as long and complex sentences being the most difficult.On the basis of the above analyses,this report takes Christiane Nord’s translation-oriented text analysis as guidance.In tackling the difficulties,the translator determines the type of translation(Instrumental or documentary)necessary for translating the source text according to translation purposes,analyzes the structural,linguistic,stylistic as well as discourse features of the source text with the help of Nord’s model which involves the analysis of translation commission and functional hierarchy of translation problems,and applies translation methods like liberal translation,translating by following syntactic linearity,all of which aims to precisely convey the information in the source text,present readers with the findings of the source text author(s),and achieve the function of translation.