A Report On E-C Translation Of Travels Of A Pioneer Of Commerce In Pigtail And Petticoats(Excerpt)

This paper is a report of translation practice.The source text of the translation is the book entitled "Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce in Pigtail and Petticoats",written by Thomas Thomville Cooper.The book belongs to the genre of a travel note.It consists of fifteen chapters in all,which mainly records what the author saw and heard on the road from Tibet to India.This translation report includes chapter fourteen and the first five stories of chapter fifteen of the book,which mainly talk about that the author returned to Ta-tsian-loo(now Kangting)and the things happened in the homewards.Although multiple difficulties are encountered,such as illness,bad weather,cold reception and so on,the author still keeps moving forward.The content of the book involves customs,religion,diet and costume.The translator takes Jin Di's equivalent effect theory as the theoretical guidance.It stresses the fact that the massage the translated text gives the target readers is essentially the same as that the source text gives the source readers,including three artistic conception:main spirit,concrete facts and artistic conception.According to Jin Di's theory,only when the translated text is accepted by the target receptor could we say that the process of translating ends.Therefore,the translator attaches great importance to the effect of the translation,striving to make the translation smooth and accurate,and improve the readability of the translation.In the practice of translation,the translator focuses on the frequently-used translation skills in the report and discusses the examples in detail so as to better achieve Jin Di's equivalent effect theory.As for lexical expressions,the translation skills such as back-translation and transliteration are used.As for the sentences,the translator discusses distinct translation skills toward different sentences,such as the translation of attributive clauses,sentences of inverted order,sentences of passive voice and long and other complex sentences.Combining the theory and the translator's own attempts,this report discusses the difficulties and solutions during the process of translating a travel note text,and draws inspiration and lessons.