| This paper is a translation practice report on the first chapter of A Companion to Colonial America edited by Daniel Vickers. This book is mainly about the history of colonial America whose contents concern political, religious, immigrant, ecology, etc. The author selected the Chapter 1:Pre-Contact:The Evidence from Archaeology whose authors are David G. Anderson and Marvin T. Smith. This chapter introduces the archaeological findings related to American colonial history.During the process of translation, the author always adheres to the translation theory of "Fusion of Horizons". This is one of the three major Philosophical Hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer. He emphasizes that understanding is never the simple copy of text, but an innovation process during which the interpreter tries to understand the meaning of the original author. But the understanding process will be restricted by the current historical condition. And thus the horizon of the original author has to integrate with that of the current interpreters to reach a new horizon. The author of this paper has employed several translation skills to make the translation more genuine, namely, conversion of word classes, additional translation, lessened translation, literal translation, free translation, etc.Through this translation task, the author has learned a lot. Firstly, translation never equals to the simple conversion of words. It relates to the communication of different cultures. Thus, the translation must be faithful, smooth and authentic on the basis of full understanding. Secondly, translators should avoid being restricted by the sentences or specific words of the original text. Or, the translation will be Chinglish. At last, it’s also crucial to know something about the field of the translation materials.The contents of this paper can be generally divided into two parts:1. introduction of the translation task, including task source, meaning and preparations; 2. the exposition and application of translation theory. |
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