A Translation Project Report Of Hooked:How To Build Habit-Forming Products (Experts)

This paper is a report on a translation project. The source text for the translation is selected from Hooked:How to Build Habit-Forming Products (2014), written by a guest professor of Harvard University, Nir Eyal, and the founder of "Product Hunt", Ryan Hoover. The book, a study on consumer psychology, analyzes the four elements that constitute consuming behavior and illustrates how these elements affect product design. Chapter I, Chapter II and Sections 1-2 of Chapter III of the book were selected as the source text for the translation. On the basis of the translation project, the report herein was completed.During the translation, the translator encountered several problems such as the adoption of language style, the translation of terminology, slangs and proverbs, and the translation of long sentences. Based on Nord’s translation-oriented text analysis model, the translator first identified the book as an informative text, and the translation practice as instrumental. Correspondingly, the translator chose translation methods such as amplification, omission, and conversion to solve above mentioned problems.After solving the problems encountered in the translation project, the translator has gained several understandings. First, preparation work is essential, which will determine the success of the project and the translation quality. Second, translation theories are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, translation theories can provide guidance for solving translation problems; on the other hand, if the translator is just confined to translation theories, the translation will be susceptible to stiffhess. Finally, the translator’s knowledge enterprise and language competence determine the quality of the translation.