| The Martyrdom of Man is one of the British historian William Winwood Reade's two best-known books.As a historical classical work,it is included in the Thinker's Library.In the book,Reade traces the development of western civilization on the basis of abundant facts and evidence.However,there is none Chinese version of it on the market.The translation of this book will make readers know more about western history and may contribute to domestic scholars' understanding and studies on this subject.This report is based on the translation of two sections from Chapter Four of the book.In order to present the information in the book before readers,the report adopts Vermeer's Skopos theory as its theoretical guidance on the basis of analyses of the content and the language features of the source material.Based on the three rules of Skopos theory,the report deals with such difficulties during translation as the representation of culture-loaded words and geographic names,the faithful and concise expression of sentences,as well as the smooth and coherent translation of the text through specific case studies.In order to achieve readability and acceptability of the target text,methods or skills employed in solving these difficulties include annotated transliteration,use of Chinese four-character,literal translation,free translation,combination,reorganization,extension,reverse translation,insertion and so on.Although some shortcomings are found in the translated text after multiple evaluations,the translation is relatively accurate in using words,basically achieves the intra-textual and the inter-textual coherence and the communicative purpose.Finally,the report concludes that the translation of historical classics can follow the principles of accuracy,faithfulness,conciseness and coherence.By doing so,the author of the report intends to draw lessons from this translation practice and provide reference for those who are going to translate historical classics. |
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