A Translation Report Of Do Animals Think?(Excerpts)

The material for this translation practice is chosen from the book “Do AnimalsThink?”, which is written by a famous American zoologist, Clive D. L. Wynne. He isalso a professor of psychology at University of Florida in the USA. The book makessome preparations for future study, especially the relationship between man and theanimals. The book is widely praised by scholars of animals and animal lovers. This hasgreat significance to explore the myth of the nature and to study the relationships ofhuman, animals and the nature, which is quite important to the whole biosphere.The excerpt mainly deals with the concept of “What are animals?” and givesexamples on researches about “the secrets of honeybee behavior and “the relationshipsbetween the human and animals.”The main reason for the translator chooses theseparts is that the book is informative and interesting, mainly introduces the animals’characteristics and the knowledge of animal behavior and psychology, etc. Thetranslation practice is finished in about ten months, which includes the following work:pre-translation preparations (choose the text, check if it already has been translatedinto Chinese, read the whole text and decide which chapters should be chosen as theexcerpt part, look for background information about the writer and the original textthrough the Internet, library and digital library resources, prepare necessary referencebooks and determine what translation theories and strategies should be adopted), do thetranslation work (the translator looks up the new words and phrases with the help ofdictionaries and looks for information about related parallel texts and terminologiesthrough the Internet). After translating, the translator tries hard to proofread andmodify the translated version several times until a rather satisfactory version is made.And then a translation report is written based on the translation practice.The translation report is also written under the guidance of Nida’s functionalequivalence theory and the skopos theory. The translation strategies of how to dealwith passive sentences, long sentences and special terms are adopted in the translationpractice, while the contents, cultures and language features shall all be taken intoconsideration.At the end of the report, the translator summarizes the major findings, implications, limitations, hoping to make some suggestions for future translationpractices. Though the translation has been done, there still exists some limitations inthe translation that need to improve. The translator believes that through continuoushard work and the experience accumulation, these limitations can be overcome and thelevel of translation practice will surely be improved.