A Report On The English-Chinese Translation Of Evolution Of The Japanese:Social And Psychic Chapters5-12) Under Context Theory

Against the backdrop of globalization,cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries have been significantly intensified.Gaining an understanding of the history,culture and ways of thinking of foreign countries is not only conducive to broadening the horizon of Chinese individuals,but also to bridging the cultural gap between different nations.As a fundamental bridge and link between different languages,translation is irreplaceable and essential.Thus,translating texts focusing on culture has also been receiving considerable attention in academia.In this report,chapters from 5 to 12 in Evolution of the Japanese: Social and Psychic written by Sidney Lewis Gulick,an American educator and author,are selected as translation materials.From the occidental viewpoint to observe Japanese and even the oriental civilization,these chapters investigate Japanese national characteristics to reveal how Japanese national psychology functions in the social transformation.Following the principles of Context Theory,the present translator explores a variety of translation techniques with typical examples,including conversion of affirmatives and negatives,conversion of voice,specification,generalization,annotation and Chinese four-character phrases from linguistic context,context of situation and context of culture.The findings reveal that translating words,sentences,and even paragraphs is inseparable from the context.The context-centered techniques not only enhance the flow and naturalness of the translation and reduce the reading burden of target language readers,but also provide a guidance for translating such texts in the future.