A Report On The Translation Of The Right To Look:A Counterhistory Of Visuality (Excerpts)

The aim of this report is to investigate the concept of academic translation and to examine the related translation strategies employed in source text within a systemic functional approach by analyzing an academic book on visual culture in the framework of history,which is The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality(Nicholas Mirzoeff,2011).This report hopes to share such a translation experience with other translators who deal with a similar subject and is eager to explore a deeper world from it.As the core theory of functionalism,the skopos theory breaks away from the traditional shackle of equivalence-focused principle by attaching importance to the expected translation purpose with emphasis on the achieving the functions of the target text.Under the skopos theory and the specific requirement of this translation work,full subjectivity is given to the translator and more priority is given to target readers.This report consists of five parts: the first part briefly introduces the book and the writer,the requirements as well as the significance of this translation task.The second part is concerned with the translation process,which includes time plan,parallel texts,glossary establishing,selection of translation devices,and quality control as well.The third part focuses on analyzing the features of the source text and exploring the theory,aiming to put bedrock for the latter part.The fourth part is the main part of this report.Translation examples are analyzed at lexical,syntactic and discourse level to discuss different translation strategies adopted by the translator in different contexts.The last part summarizes this translation report,gives some enlightenment to translators in similar fields and also specifies the problems to be solved.