A Report On The E-C Translation Of Vibrant Matter:A Politial Ecology Of Things(Excerpts)

Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things,Jane Bennett’s masterpiece of ecological theory,is an academic work in formal,professional language,containing academic terms from ecocriticism discourse and numerous references to other authors and works.The first and second chapters of the book concentrate on the concept of “thing-power” as well as the significance and purpose of human and non-human assemblages,using the “blackout” incident as a specific illustration.Choosing the first two chapters as the translation materials,this study,based on the analysis of the linguistic features of the source text,demonstrates the translation techniques under the guidance of Eugene Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory.This report addresses the major and challenging aspects of academic text translation from the lexical and syntactic levels and summarizes appropriate translation techniques based on Eugene Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory.At the lexical level,it mostly covers the approaches to translating academic terms and common words with specific connotations.Academic terms often involve professional knowledge in many domains.Therefore,terms are determined based on context and,where required,terms are tracked down to their original sources and validated by reference books and related parallel texts.For the translation of common words with special meanings,the corresponding professional meaning should be selected according to the specific context of the text.At the syntactic level,the passive voice in English is changed into the active voice in Chinese to ensure functional equivalence.And the split-translation method,linear translation method,and order-adjustment method are used for the translation of lengthy and complicated sentences,so as to make them more in line with the expression habits of Chinese.The translation based on Functional Equivalence Theory reveals the characteristics and value of ecocriticism academic texts and facilitates readers’ further understanding.In addition,the translator hopes that this translation report will serve as a useful resource for researchers and students interested in studying Eugene Nida’s translation theory and academic text translation in the future.