A Translation Project Report Of All About Coffee (Excerpts)

This is a translation project report based on the translation of All About Coffee by William Harrison Ukers. The book is an encyclopedic works in the early 20th century which specifically introduces the creation, production and evolution of coffee. The selected part is the first and the second chapters from Volume I of the book. The two chapters mainly introduce history of coffee propagation and early history of coffee drinking. Because of a lack of professional skills and background knowledge, the translator encountered some difficulties such as how to translate proper nouns and how to determine the literary style when translating.During the translation process, the translator is guided by Peter Newark’s theory on Communicative translation and Semantic translation. Meanwhile, translation strategies such as recasting and division are applied to solving specific problems. The significance of this translation practice is to help Chinese readers further understand coffee history and its related knowledge as well as it culture meaning. What was learned from the translation project is that a qualified translator should practice a lot so as to fully grasp translation skills and find out the essence of translation. The translator also should try to learn all kinds of knowledge to prepare for translating various types of texts.