| Academic culture is the crystallization of national thought and wisdom,and the academic monograph concludes the essence of the theoretical knowledge of a certain academic discipline.So the translation of the academic monograph,intended to deliver the relevant thought,concepts and academic knowledge,serves as the bridge between different nations.A good translation of the academic monograph,therefore,plays a critical role in promoting cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries.The report is just based on the translation of an academic monograph-The Outline of Chinese Historical Geography.The book,written by Shi Nianhai,a renowned historical geographer,is the first one in China making a comprehensive and systematic exposition of Chinese historical geography.The book is divided into two volumes,including 7 chapters,and the translator excerpts chapter 4 "Historical Population Geography" as the translation material which describes in detail the population in different historical periods of China from several aspects such as population distribution,population increase and population migration.The original text is not only an academic text,but also an informative text,designated to convey certain knowledge and culture,so the translator accordingly selects the theory of text typology and two corresponding translation methods:Communicative Translation and Semantic Translation put forward by Peter Newmark,a renowned British translation theorist,as the guidance.On the basis of language functions,Newmark divides texts into three main types-informative text,vocative text and expressive text,and proposes that Communicative Translation can be applied in both informative and vocative texts,while Semantic Translation applied in expressive texts.Although the informative function is the main function of the original text,the other two functions also exist in the text,so the translator adopts the Communicative Translation as the dominant method,and the Semantic Translation as the subordinate one.Then,with the guidance of the two translation methods,the translator employs appropriate translation strategies like "transliteration plus explanation","addition","literal translation",and "free translation" to solve concrete problems in the process of translation.The report is composed of five chapters.The first chapter introduces the source,background,significance and requirements of the translation task.The second chapter serves the description of the translation process,which introduces preparations the translator has made before the task,the translation process as well as the proofreading and modification of the translation.The third chapter gives a detailed introduction of main ideas of Peter Newmark's theory:Communicative Translation,Semantic Translation as well as text typology,and the application of the theory in this translation practice.The fourth chapter--case analysis is the core of the report.In this chapter,the translator,with the guidance of Peter Newmark's Communicative Translation and Semantic Translation,concludes the difficulties encountered during the translation and puts forward corresponding strategies from the lexical level and syntactical level.The final chapter summarizes the whole translation process,and points out this report's limitations.From this translation practice,the translator learns a lot,which are as follows:First,different translation tasks center on different fields of knowledge,which requires translators to constantly increase reading quantity and broaden their knowledge so as to be qualified for different tasks.Second,the translator should select proper translation theories and strategies in accordance with the nature and feature of source texts.In addition,good language competence is the basic quality for translators.So it is of great importance for translators to have strong communication skills in both English and Chinese,and then give better translation on basis of comprehending the source text accurately and thoroughly. |
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