The Application Of Compensation In The Translation Of Biographies

Translation is not only a process of language transformation, but also bears the responsibility of cultural communication. Due to the intrinsic cultural differences in two languages, cultural loss in translation is inevitable. In order to make up for translation losses, and recreate the information and feature of the source language, translation compensation becomes an indispensable strategy.This paper chooses to discuss the translation of the introduction part of Man in the Music:The Creative Life and Work of Michael Jackson, which was published in 2011. In this biography, some general knowledge for source language readers becomes barriers for target language readers. Therefore, based on previous research on translation compensation, two main compensation strategies are used in this paper, namely explicit compensation that includes footnotes and in-text annotations, and implicit compensation that includes amplification, specification and in-text explanation, to analyze specific examples from the biography, and discusses how to make up for cultural default through different compensation strategies.Based on the application of different ways of compensation, this paper also discusses two key questions, namely what compensation principles should translators abide by, and how to choose different compensation strategies. The author of this paper hopes this case analysis can provide some suggestions for translation of other biographies.