A Study On Translation Strategies And Norms In The Translation Of Academic Writing From The Perspective Of Functionalist Translation Theory

Studies on translation strategies of this thesis fall into the category of meso-levelresearch. This study probes to bridge macro translation theories and empirical inductionfrom translation practice by means of study on translation strategies for academictranslation. This study attempts to deduce specific translation strategies for addressing themajor existing difficulties on the basis of studies on how Functionalist Translation Theoryand the existing translation norms can be employed in academic translation.Nowadays, the overall quality of academic translation needs to be promoted. Themost pressing issues encountered in academic translation are the translation andinterpretation of specialized verbal signs or terms pertaining to specific domains and itemsof metalanguage. Therefore, how to identify the appropriate theoretical systemunderpinning this study and implement it in the academic translation practice thereafter isone of the major issues that we are committed to addressing.Reiss’s Text Typology, as one of important academic foundations of FunctionalistTranslation Theory, concerns language function, language dimension, translation methodas well as the purpose of the target text, which provides a powerful theoretical frameworkthat many researchers always base their studies of academic theories on. However, due tothe fact that academic translation falls into various categories, it is difficult to implement acertian theory through every translation act of this domain. It follows that the diction ofcertain specialized items and its standardization fail to meet its academic requirements.Nevertheless, the coherence rule and fidelity rule of Skopos theory provide a usefultheoretical framework for the study in this thesis on the choice of translation strategiestowards the translatability or untranslatability of the examples enumerated in academicworks. In addition, the translatability and untranslatability of the text is also determinedand guided by Toury’s matricial norms pertaining to Toury’s operational norms. Thestrategies for translation of existing terms and created terms by the author in academicwriting are guided by Toury’s textual-linguistics norms, which is the other component ofToury’s operational norms.To manifest the practicability of those translation strategies deduced from the perspective of Functionalist Translation Theory, the writer of this thesis have fulfilled thetask of translating The Mental Corpus written by Dr. John R Taylor. On this basis,combining with the concepts of cognitive linguistics such as categorization andconceptualization, stating from the perspective of style and content, this thesis is aimed atdeducing practical translation strategies with significance guiding academic translationpractice. A thorough investigation and analysis of problems pertaining to academictranslation is made in this thesis. By presenting and comparing two translation versionswith regard to the same original text of a translation phenomenon or performing a casestudy of a certain translation phenomenon, an effective translation strategy is to bededuced. Conclusions of this study are drawn as follows: with respect to academictranslation, from the perspective of style, the translation strategies of stylisticallyequivalent translation and diction-specialized translation should be followed. From theperspective of content, the strategy of inheriting translation should be adopted for existingterms and creating translation for newly-created terms. Foreignizing translation andannotating translation can be adopted for the translation of enumerated examples in thesource text.