A Report On E-C Translation Of The Beauty In Breaking:A Memoir(Excerpt) From The Perspective Of Katharina Reiss’s Text Typology

This translation report is written based on the E-C translation project of Dr.Michele Harper’s biography,The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir,which details a personal account of the author’s experiences,especially medical events in the emergency room,mixed with insights into the experiences and opinions on the existing circumstances of society.The source text not only provides readers with a wealth of knowledge and information about emergency medicine,but also includes frequently trenchant comments on personal observations and advocacy for social progress against issues such as racism,gender discrimination,and medical violence.As such,it constitutes a biographical work that is informative,expressive,and operative.Text Typology is a translation theory put forward by the German translation scholar Katharina Reiss.The theory categorizes text into informative,expressive and operative types and suggests distinct translation principles for each.As the source text inherently encompasses all three types,this report employs text typology as a guide to classify the source text based on their characteristics and summarize the corresponding translation strategies for each type in biography.In line with Reiss’ s criteria for informative texts,the translator adds necessary annotations to the medical terms and explicates the connotations of jargons used in medical industry to ensure accurate information is conveyed to the target language readers.To comply with the requirements for expressive texts,the translator incorporates fourcharacter idioms and simulates the idiolect form of the original text to create a familiar aesthetic experience for the readers and to maintain the characteristics of the original text as much as possible.Additionally,in accordance with the requirements for operative texts to encourage non-linguistically practical actions,the translator attempts to enhance the evocative and infectious nature of the language by repeating words to form parallel structures and converting the affirmative words into double negative words,so as to capture the target readers’ attention and arouse their sympathy.Through this study,this report provides an indicative strategy mechanism for the translation of biography literature based on text type.