Application Of Semantic And Communicative Translation In Translating

British translation theorist Peter Newmark put forward the theory of semantic and communicative translation in1980s, which provided approaches to translation practice. The author of this thesis did an English-Chinese translation of the biography Forever Today, which was a life memoir of "my" husband and "me" written by Deborah Wearing with a flat and simple style.The difficulties in translation involved the rendering of certain words and phrases, sentence patterns and rhetoric. The challenge in words and phrases was how to translate them accurately and at the same time accord with the Chinese way of expression; the problem with sentence translation was how to make the structure acceptable through necessary changes; the difficulty in rhetoric was how to make the translated text as vivid and effective as the original. The thesis is focused on the solutions of these difficulties.The method of case study is used in the thesis. The author collected relevant words and phrases, sentence patterns and rhetoric, analyzed and dealt with them by adopting the theory of semantic and communicative translation presented by Peter Newmark. Based on the translation practice and theoretical study, the author suggested two points in the application of semantic translation:(1) determine correct meaning of words and phrases according to context, and (2) be true to the original text and keep the features of sentences. Moreover, three suggestions were made in the application of communicative translation:(1) use addition and make the translated text acceptable,(2) take target language habit into consideration and make necessary changes, and (3) reproduce the original rhetoric in a flexible way.The conclusion of the thesis is that semantic translation and communicative translation can be combined in translation practice; the author also points out the circumstances in which the two strategies are applied.