Case Study Of Translation Of The History Of China(Excerpts): With Focus On The Application Of Parallel Texts

This report is written based on the translation of Chapter nine from The History of China, which was published by Britannica Educational Publishing in association with Rosen Educational Services. The author takes the translation as a case study and illustrates the significance of the application of parallel texts in the process of translation, aiming to explore how to effectively and efficiently present a professional and authentic translation in an unfamiliar field with the help of parallel texts.In the beginning, this report briefly introduces the translation project, including the content of the book and the excerpted part. The original text, whose content includes politics, economy, cultural developments, foreign relations etc. in each dynasty concerned is non-literary and involves a wide array of historical terminologies and fixed sentence structures. Thus, the translation task is extremely challenging for a translator who has relatively little knowledge in the field of history. In this case, in order to pursue a high-quality target text, the author employs parallel texts in the translation process. Then, the author focuses on how to utilize parallel texts to acquire a thorough understanding of the original text, confirm the accurate terminology, absorb idiomatic expressions and imitate the style in the target language by giving examples from three aspects: translation of idiomatic terminology, supplement of important historical facts and imitation of language styles.The author notes that although consulting and applying parallel texts to E-C translation can improve the quality of the translation and enhance its readability, parallel texts are not a panacea for all translation problems. Translators should pay more attention to the authoritativeness of parallel texts. After completing this report, the author has a better understanding of the application of parallel texts, hoping they could provide some valuable references for translators and example analysis for further study on parallel texts theory.