A Report On The E-C Translation Practice Of Earthquakes In Human History (Chapter 9)

This paper is a report on translation practice related to earthquake.The translated material is based on the ninth chapter of the book Earthquakes in Human History,discussing “Peru in 1970: Chaos in the Andes”.The chapter can be divided into two parts.In the first part,the author described the impact of the 1971 earthquake on Peruvian society.In the second part,reforms carried out by the government and the church after the earthquake was discussed,including the real life of people in quake-stricken areas.The translation of the book will help better understand the relationship between man and nature,especially the medium and long-term effects of natural disasters on society.This compound text is related to various professional areas,including knowledge in sociology,history,politics and geology.A variety of culture-loaded words,the translation of complex sentences,the textual coherence and how to bring the emotion in the target text into the translation are the major difficulties in this translation practice.The translator made the following endeavor.Firstly,to avoid errors in translation and inconsistency of terms,seismic terms and culture-loaded words need to follow certain strategies like transliteration,amplification and variation translation.Additionally,normativity of geological terms requires special concern in the meantime.Secondly,language is the carrier of information,and there are different ways of expression due to cultural differences.Many long and difficult sentences need to be reorganized or rewritten to make it logical and smooth.Thirdly,The cohesion and coherence of the discourse can be achieved through thorough understanding of Peruvian culture,overcoming different expression habits,and a flexible use lexical and grammatical means.Finally,translation is a creative work.Although machine translation can greatly broaden the translator’s knowledge threshold,a good translation work still largely depends on the translator’s literacy.Translation also needs the empathy between the translator and the author.Only by virtue of the love and responsibility for the original text,can the life of the source text be extended.