A Report On Translating The Seventh Chapter Of World Regional Geography

This report is an English-Chinese translation practice,which is based on the seventh chapter,"China,the Giant",of World Regional Geography(Six Edition)written by Joseph J·Hobbs.In this chapter,many aspects of China,such as the setting,issues in agriculture,industry,transportation and cultures,are introduced,which present the regional geographic characteristics of China to readers.At present,systematic researches on the translation of comprehensive geographic books are quite limited.In the light of Newmark's translation theory,the author of this report selects the seventh chapter "Chinese giant" as the source text,aiming to explore the application of communicative translation in the text of the geographical types.This paper mainly analyzes the typical cases from lexical and syntactic level.At lexical level,the author of this report adopts transformation of parts of speech and amplification.At syntactic level,the source text is full of long and complicated sentences and passive voice.Division is selected for long and complicated sentences,conversion of voice for passive sentences and readjustment for complex sentences.In addition,other translation methods,such as synthesization and omission,are also employed in the practice,which aim to ensure the translation more natural and as close as to the source text.The report shows that,for the translation of informative text like this one,the translator should convey the original information,and focus on its both content and form acceptable to the target readers at the same time.Under the guidance of Newmark's communicative translation theory,a smooth information communication could be attained by combining with a variety of skills.At present,there is no Chinese version of World Regional Geography.The author of this report wants to provide reference for the translation of the same type of text through this practice.