A Report On The Translation Of Elephants And Kings—An Environmental History (Chapter Ⅳ)

This is an English-Chinese translation practice report on Elephants and Kings-An Environmental History, written by the famous US writer and historian Thomas R. Trautmann. This book, with formal style and rigorous structure, is mainly about the history of India and Indian elephants, as well as the relationship between humans and the environment. It surely has certain academic value and significance in the future.The present translation practice is on the excerpts Chapter four, which introduces the high position of elephant and horse as the important military assets, deeply loved by the King. The origin, distribution, feeding, care and management of the elephants are also mentioned in the chapter. This book is related to history, military, environment and animal science, it has difficulty in understanding, especially the vocabulary differences between Chinese and Western cultures and the difficulties of the sentence structure. Accordingly, some translation methods are applied to tackle these difficulties, such as, interpretating, semantic selection and extension, turning phrases into clauses, amplification, conversion, separation and integration of sentences.Some feelings and experiences have been got in the process of the translation practice. The translator recognizes that the fully preparation work prior to translation is very important; the translator should have enough circumspection and patience rather than seek quick success and instant benefits; each step in the process should be treated attentively, including understanding, expressing and correcting; the translation ability cannot be improved overnight, therefore, the translator should learn more, accumulate more and practice more in daily life.