A Report On The C-E Translation Of The History Of National Southwest Associated University:Peking,Tsinghua And Nankai From 1937 To 1946 (Excerpts) Under The Guidance Of Text Typology Theory

The source text of this translation report is selected from The History of National Southwest Associated University(NSAU): Peking,Tsinghua and Nankai from 1937 to1946,which is compiled by the Southwest Associated University Alumni Association in Beijing and describes the wandering life of this famous wartime university in exile by collecting a large number of first-hand materials,documents and historical photographs.During the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression,the NSAU produced many outstanding masters and talents,exploring an educational model of a world-class university,maintaining the culture of the Chinese nation,and being the pride of China’s modern and cultural history.Meanwhile,the spirit of patriotism at NSAU provides a valuable spiritual treasure for humanity that deserves to be carried forward by future generations.How to tell the essence of an excellent cultural story in English is of great significance to the international communication of China’s image.In this translation project,telling the story of the NSAU is tantamount to a good narration of China’s story.Therefore,translating the school history of NSAU has certain practical significance.In this project,the translator chooses the eighth and ninth sections in the first chapter of this book for her source text,totaling 11,029 words.The content of these two sections mainly covers the discussion on the relocation of the NSAU and the Xuyong campus,and the NSAU from 1941 to August 1945.Guided by the text typology theory of German functionalist scholar Katharina Reiss,this report classifies the school history as informative texts after an analysis of the stylistic features of the source text,whose linguistic functions are mainly to express facts,information,knowledge and opinions,so the translator should focus on conveying the content of the source text when translating.Considering the differences between the Chinese and English languages,as well as the target readers’ acceptability,the information of the source text can be demonstrated accurately by translator at three levels: lexical level,syntactical level,and textual level,so as to make the target readers learn about the university history well.To be specific,the lexical level involves the translation of proper nouns,repetitive words and category words.As for proper nouns,the translator uses literal translation,free translation and annotation,and the accuracy of this translation can be guaranteed by repetitive retrievals and verifications;as for repetitive words and category words,omission is adopted.Such translation techniques as division,voice conversion,participles and with + noun + participles structure,and adjustment of word orders are used at syntactical level.Lastly,at textual level,the implicit logical relations between paragraphs and sentences become explicit by some cohesive devices.It has been proved that Reiss’ s text typology theory is of strong guiding significance to this translation practice,helps translators clarify text types,understand the features of different texts,and adopt appropriate translation methods and techniques.The translator tries to transmit the information of the source text completely and accurately,and present an authentic,readable,acceptable target text to target readers,in the hope that such report can provide some inspiration for the translation of the school history.