Semantic Transfer And Adjustments In Translation

With the development of modern science and technology, the acceleration of economic globalization, pragmatic translation will occupy a more and more important position in human translating activity. Unfortunately, pragmatic translation has been somewhat neglected and under-evaluated. In the field of C-E pragmatic translation, serious problems, such as semantic ambiguity, translationese and redundancy, lead to difficult comprehension or even misunderstanding of the TL readers.This thesis is to try to call people's attention to these C-E pragmatic translation problems by probing into the first fundamental question of translation: What is the primary task of translation? By examining some translation theories of Eugene Nida and Peter Newmark, analyzing the language function and text type of pragmatic texts, a conclusion,is made that transferring meaning of the original texts is the primary task of any translation and cognitive meaning should be given priority in pragmatic translation.Another fundamental question concerning pragmatic translation this thesis tries to answer is: Should translation be author-centered or reader-centered and SL-oriented or TL-oriented? Determined by the target of pragmatic translation - the general readership seeking information, the characteristics of pragmatic texts and the demands of modern society, it is assumed that pragmatic translation should be reader-centered and TL-oriented.By answering the two fundamental questions, the duel principles-faithful to the meaning of the original and smooth in language are applied to pragmatic translation. Therefore, to transfer meaning as closely as possible, translators should decode the meaning of the original text closely and make every endeavor to make the translation natural and readable. Contextual amplification is introduced at length in this thesis as well as other semantic adjustments in the translation of some Chinese neologism and special expressions and structures.