On The Translation Of Informative Texts From English Into Chinese

Translation is needed in the exchange among civilizations of different languages.It transmits the information from one language to another language adequately and coherently so that the target language readers can understand the information in their languages and cultural backgrounds.However,translators are faced with various problems in the translation process because of differences in syntactic structures and cultural backgrounds among different languages.How to deal with these problems determines whether the information in the source text can be conveyed thoroughly and adequately to the target language readers.Many scholars have put forward translation theories,for example,Nida's functional equivalence theory,Newmark's communicative translation theory and Vermeer's skopos theory.Vermeer's skopos theory belongs to functional theories of translation which focuses on the purpose of the text.It is summarized as three rules:skopos rule,coherence rule and fidelity rule.These three rules are in a hierarchical order which means that the purpose of the text is the first aspect to be considered in translational action.Reiss ever discussed about the purpose of the text.She holds that different text types have different purposes and characteristics.The main purpose of the informative text is to convey information about plain facts.The language of the informative text is logical and the content or "topic" is the main focus.Generally speaking,there are many passive sentences and long sentences in English informative texts.One the one hand,this is due to the characteristics of English;on the other hand,this is because these two kinds of sentences can express information objectively and precisely.However,the characteristics of Chinese are different from English.Chinese does not rely on passive sentences with the fixed structure to express passive meaning.Meanwhile,some strategies are needed to translate long English sentences into Chinese sentences which are clear and readable.Guided by the skopos rule,coherence rule and fidelity rule of Vermeer's skopos theory,this report explores the strategies for translating English passive sentences and long sentences in chapter four of Geographical Psychology by analyzing concrete examples.This report finds that with focus on Vermeer's skopos theory,it is feasible to choose corresponding strategies according to the characteristics of Chinese in the translation of passive sentences and long sentences in English informative texts.