A Report On The Translation Of Western Translation Theory (Excerpted From Page 60 To Page 65)

The source text of this translation practice report is selected from the book Western Translation Theory: from Herodotus to Nietzsche, which mainly introduces the life, works and main translation thoughts of three humanists and translators in the Renaissance —Duarte, William Caxton and Desiderius Erasmus. It's hoped that the translation of this text will help us better understand the history of translation in the West, and furthermore will promote the development of domestic translation practice.Considerable historical background knowledge in the source text have brought large quantities of difficulties and challenges in the translation process. So the translator made every effort to track the source of the historical background knowledge, such as archaic words, Greek words, French words, Greek mythology, Bible stories, etc. What's more, the content of the source text is obscure, the sentence structure is complex, so some linguistic and translation skills are necessary when translating the text.This report analyzes the translation of the selected text based on the English translation theorist Newmark's communicative translation theory, including semantic translation and communicative translation, which aims at showing full respect for the meaning conveyed by the original text, and at the same time attempts to produce on the target readers an effect as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original.The source text is an introduction of western translation theory, which belongs to academic translation. Therefore, in the process of translation, semantic translation theory is needed to make the target text as faithful as possible to the source text. At the same time, due to the differences between Chinese and Western culture, and differences in language structures and thinking habits, so, in the translation process, to produce on the target readers an effect as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original,the translator should apply methods of communicative translation theory such as amplification, omission, division and restructuring, thus transmitting maximum source text to fluent and smooth target text.Through the translation practice, the translator has come to the conclusion that, a good translator needs to have various qualities as follows: profound mastery of language skills and translation theories, rich and broad knowledge, certain translation strategies, etc.