An English-Chinese Translation Of Chapter One In The Multilingual Subject And Its Analysis

Second language acquisition (SLA) research has traditionally given more attention to the process of acquisition than the perceptions, emotions, and identities of individual language learners. The Multilingual Subject is an academic book written by Claire Kramsch, Professor of German and Education at University of California, Berkeley. The book is a combination of SLA and cognitive linguistics, with its very emphasis on the flesh-and-blood learners’ subjective perceptions and inner experiences. In view of language difficulty, a Chinese version of the book can provide a gateway for more Chinese readers to SLA research from a linguistic perspective and provide inspiration for Chinese SLA researchers.The writer translates the first chapter of The Multilingual Subject and analyzes the translation. The main difficulty that the translator faces throughout the entire translation is the translation of terms and names, long and difficult sentences, non-English texts, quotes, notes and stories. In principle, such techniques as abstract translation, addition, conversion and free translation have been used to deal with a number of difficult words and the tactics of change of word order, conversion between actives and passives, expansion and division have been adopted to deal with difficult sentences. In the analysis of the translation, how the main difficulties have been handled is specified and the translation of typical skillfully-tackled words and sentences is analyzed by using their contexts.