On Academic Translation With A Case Study Of Translation Of Language:Its Nature, Development And Origin

This paper, based on the Reiss’s and Newmark’s text typologies, discusses the translation strategies of academic translation with the case study of translation of Language:Its Nature, Development and Origin. The text typology, on the basis of divisions of text functions, is a vital breakthrough and significant complement of the traditional translation "Equivalence Principle". Compared with traditional translation theory’faithfulness principle which focuses too much on source language, the text typology pays more attention to the text functions in target language. And the translation purposes, the readers and the author’s purposes are also included in research. Thus the text typology is helpful for translators to objectively analyze the functions of the original texts and adopt the proper translation strategies in accordance with language features of texts with different functions. It has therefore strong explanatory power and persuasion in choosing proper translation strategies. As Language:Its Nature, Development and Origin is a linguistic book, this paper therefore aims to discuss translation strategies employed in translation after the analysis of the characteristics of academic texts especially the linguistic ones.The first chapter discusses the importance of academic translation and its research situation as well as introduces the content of Language:Its Nature, Development and Origin, its stylistic features and the research orientation and main academic perspectives of its author. The second chapter, according to the Reiss’s and Newmark’s text typologies, compares translation strategies of different texts. And the characteristics of linguistic works are analyzed to preliminarily decide on translation strategies. Also the process of translation and its review are explained in details. The third chapter, using examples, lists a series of problems from the perspective of words and sentences, such as translation of linguistic terms, extension of words’meaning, conversion between active voice and passive voice, the choices of sentences’subjects and so on, and analyzes translation strategies adopted under the construction of text typology. The forth chapter reviews the paper’s whole research and draw the conclusion from it that the specific language and stylistic features of linguistic book should be taken full consideration so that proper translation strategies can be adopted. But theories and strategies can’t solve all the problems, they shall be applied in a manner of case by case analysis, that is to say, semantic translation strategies shall be applied when necessary. Finally the paper points out the deficiencies of the study, and expresses the author’s prospects of the future study in this field.The translation practice shows the practice needs to be guided by theories. Attention should be paid to language and stylistic features of academic works for adoption of communicative translation strategy as well as the distinction between English and Chinese in terms of words and sentences. But strategies summarized in the paper may not suit all the problems in translation of linguistic works. It needs to be enriched by everlasting translation practice.