A Semantic Translation Approach To The Chinese Translation Of Swearing:a Cross-Cultural Linguistic Study

The translation materials are excerpted from the book Swearing:A Cross-Cultural Linguistic Study by Magnus Ljung, the emeritus professor of English linguistics at Stockholm University in Sweden. This book discusses the classification, usage and form of swearing from the perspective of linguistics. Some of the terms have already had the conventional translation forms while others still awaits their counterparts. Based on the features of terminology, principles of terminology translation, Newmark’s theory of semantic translation, the author conducts a discussion of methods of terminology translation in the linguistic study regarding swearing.The thesis first states the translation process and principles of the text concerned. In translation preparation and analysis, the author introduces the text and identifies the text type together with her reasons for material selection. The author then explains the translation of the selected text based on Newmark’s theory of semantic translation. Last comes the case study of the translation with some representative examples determined according to the features and types of terminology.The case study reveals that Newmark’s theory of semantic translation is of much importance to analyse and consider both the features of terminology and principles of terminology translation,indicating accordingly that the semantic translation strategy can help transfer of the technicality, professionalism and authority from the original text to the translation.