Report On Translating Biographical Text You Must Set Forth At Dawn From English To Chinese With Focus On Communicative Translation Theory

Based on the communicative translation proposed by Peter Newmark in 1980s and taking the translation of You Must Set forth at Dawn for example,this report explores how to make the translation meet the needs of the target readers.The translated text in this report comes from the memoir You Must Set at Dawn by Soyinka,the first Nobel Prize laureate in literature in Africa.Soyinka not only is a writer,but also takes an active part in the Nigerian national political movement,commenting on or criticizing the political affairs of Nigeria from time to time,thus suffering a variety of hardships such as exile as well as departure of his relatives and friends.This book is based on what he thought and recalled when he returned to his native country after his exile,which is of great importance to study the politics,history,culture and customs of Nigeria or even Africa.Due to the distinctive writing style of the writer,the source text proves a little difficult for the author of the report to translate.The specific difficulties are as follows:first,there are a lot of abstract nouns,nominalizations and alien cultural images.As a result,the translator cannot confine himself to the surface structure of the source text,and literal translation is often not a desirable method.Second,there are some complex long sentences where a large amount of information is embedded.Therefore,he translator can follow the principle of communicative translation and translate the source text flexibly by centering on the target readers so as to achieve good communicative effect.This report will focus on discussing the translation methods of these difficulties.