A Practice Report On E-C Translation Of Empire Of Pain:The Secret History Of The Sackler Family (Excerpts)

This report is the summary of the English-Chinese translation practice of the excerpts from Chapter 1 to Chapter 3 of Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler,whose author is Patrick Laden Keefe.He is an American investigative journalist and writer.The book,which was published by Picador in 2021,tells the development of the Sackler family from nobody to somebody due to the study and promotion of the famous drug: oxycontin.The choice of this book not only helps the author of this report to have a deeper understanding of the social environment and cultural background during the American immigration period,but also helps to have a better knowledge of product operation by combining medicine with advertisements advocated by the Sackler,which is of great help to the translator’s future work.The biography is an information-oriented text,whose author needs to explain the social background and development of the characters according to historical facts and actual situations.The information conveyed needs to be accurate,detailed,and objective.In addition,the biography can bring aesthetic experience to readers,so biographies are also called expressive texts.The Contextualism theory was first put forward by the linguist Malinowski.He emphasized the internal influence of languages on the one hand,and the external factors of languages on the other,which is consistent with the information and literariness of biographical texts.This translation practice is deeply influenced by the Contextualism theory.When translating,the translator has comprehensively considered the influence of factors within the language,namely Linguistic Context,and factors outside the language,namely Situational Context and Cultural Context.In the process of determining the meaning of particular words and syntactic adjustment in the translation,the choice of words and sentences not only shows the attitudes and viewpoints of the author of this book,accurately restores the background and information of the characters,but also shows the literariness of the original text.This report describes the process of applying the Contextualism theory to this practice in combination with case analysis.The author of this report found that the influence of Linguistic Context,Situational Context and Cultural Context is not independent,but there is mutual influence and support.Translators need to change translation strategies and methods according to the actual context in order to achieve the ultimate goal of translation,to tell the information and literariness of biographical texts.Briefly,the author of this report,through the previous studies of the Contextualism theory,has deepened the understanding of the theory and its application in biographical texts combined with specific cases analysis in this translation practice,which is of positive significance for the translation of similar texts in the future.