A Report On The C-E Translation Of Chen Duxiu And His Two Sons(Excerpts) In The Light Of Text Typology

The source text of this translation practice report is taken from the biography of historical figures Chen Duxiu and His Two Sons written by Mr.Zhu Hong,a famous writer.This long biography is set in China in the first half of the 20 th century and focuses on the glorious and extraordinary lives of the three men,which tells the changeable and special family affection between the two sons and their father and the sobbing story of the revolution.Chen Duxiu was one of the main founders of the Chinese Communist Party and its early leaders,and the brothers Chen Yannian and Chen Qiaonian also made important contributions to the development of the Party.It is not easy for Mr.Zhu to collect scattered and fragmentary historical materials as the basis for a combined biography that integrates family and national affairs.The translation of this book can show the world the Chinese people’s qualities such as the deep love of father and son,their patriotism,and the revolutionary spirit,which can also have a positive effect on inspiring the national spirit and morale of other countries and promoting the ideological awakening of the people.The book contains nine chapters,of which the seventh and eighth chapters mainly tell the moving and heroic story of Chen Duxiu,Chen Yannian and Chen Qiaonian who devoted themselves to the revolutionary cause and sacrificed one by one in the revolutionary torrent.The author of the report is deeply attracted by the revolutionary enthusiasm,patriotism and shining personality of the three brave men,so these two chapters were chosen as the source text for the translation project.The author hopes to take this opportunity to bring the touching stories of the three men into the lives of more foreign language readers.In the process of translation,the author found that different text types focus on different linguistic functions and characteristics,translation purposes and translation methods.This book is a biographical text,and biographies are different from general traditional literature and have distinctive features.According to the classification of text typology by Katharina Reiss,a famous German scholar and translation theorist,biographical literature is an informative and expressive text,which is both historical and literary.The book,firstly aims to introduce those outstanding figures in the real historical context to the foreign readers,focusing on conveying information and,secondly,on transmitting aesthetics.Guided by Reiss’ text typology,the author,combining the translation requirements of the above two texts,is able to adopt appropriate translation methods and strategies when translating this biography so as to make the translation faithful,fluent,and preserve the style of the original text.The translation practice report is divided into five chapters.Chapter 1 provides an overview of the project,including introduction to the book and writer,the source text,value and purposes,and project analysis.Chapter 2 is project process,which includes the pre-translation,including source text reading,background information collecting,academic articles reading,and tool selecting and terminology construction;while-translation,including project creating,translation difficulties such as lexical processing,sentence processing,discourse processing,and cultural processing during the translation process;and post-translation,including self-revision,cross-checking and supervisor’s revision.Chapter 3is the theoretical basis,subdivided into the development of domestic research of translation of biographical literature,an overview of text typology and the guiding significance of this theory.Chapter 4 is case analysis.Firstly,in terms of completeness and fluency of content communication,the main strategies and specific methods of Chinese-English translation of biographies of historical figures are summarized with specific translation examples,starting from the translation of culture-loaded terms and idioms.Secondly,the author also makes some attempts to ensure the aesthetics of the original text,starting from the translation of classical Chinese,Chinese run-on sentences and rhetorical sentences.Chapter 5 is conclusion,which mainly summarizes the gains and limitations of this translation practice,as well as the prospect of translation.