A Report On The Translation Of The Routledge Handbook Of Planning Research Methods(Chapter 5.8)

The importance of urban planning has been continually highlighted with the acceleration of urbanization. Scientific and rational urban planning could help eliminate some of the negative effects of urbanization. The Routledge Handbook of Planning Research Methods,making a comprehensive summary of the scientific and rational research methods for urban planning, may be viewed as an textbook for planning students and practitioners. Therefore,the Chinese version of this book can undoubtedly promote the domestic urban planning research.As a member of the translation team, the translator applies Nord's Translation-oriented Text Analysis Theory to the translation of this book, so as to summarize some feasible translation strategies and methods for translation of planning text. Based on Text linguistics and Text Typology theory, the translation-oriented text analysis theory attaches more importance to source text analysis when focusing on the text function as a decisive factor for translation. Therefore, the translator believes that this text analysis theory is more applicable in guiding this translation project than other functionalist approaches. Through the pre-translation analysis of the source text based on Nord's Theory, the extratextual factors and intratextual factors of the source text are analyzed, which help to confirm the informative function of the source text, thus literal translation is chosen as the main translation strategy.After comparison with the intended function of the target text, the translator could make some adjustments with regard to the differences between ST and TT, and then some translation methods are summarized to solve the translation difficulties.In the process of translation, the translator has gathered some parallel texts in urban planning. Adequate pre-translation preparation has been made before designing the translation schedule. Then experts are consulted and some translation methods are adopted to solve difficulties encountered in translation. The post-translation proofreading helps to correct some mistakes in the translation. All of the effort contributes to the final completion of this translation project, which provides a reference book for Chinese students or youngprofessionals and practitioners in urban planning. In conclusion, the translator hopes that this translation report could reproduce the whole translation process, and provide reference for the E-C translation of urban planning texts in the future, and inspire the beginners in translation for improvement in their translation competence.