Translation Of Long Sentences-A Report On The Translation Of Letters To A Law Student(Excerpts)

The author,Nicholas J.Mcbride,wrote the book Letters to a Law Student for anyone who is doing,or thinking about doing a law degree at university.This book comprises a series of letters to a law student Alex,a fictional student who is doing a three-year degree,giving him advice on various issues such as how to study law,how to prepare exams and how to prepare himself to be a qualified lawyer.This book provides readers with instructive information and suggestions,helping readers understand the essence of law.The writing of this report is based on the translation practice of the first and second letters in the first chapter of Letters to a Law Student.The book,viewed as an informative legal text,is characterized by its lexical precision,syntactic complexity,and textual logicality.The source text is covered with a number of long sentences with complex structure.Therefore,the author takes long sentence as the priority of this paper to discuss translation methods.During the whole translation process,the author mainly follows three principles of translation,which are accuracy,formalness and smoothness.Meanwhile,the author analyzes the difficulty of every long sentence and proposes applicable translation methods such as linear translation,inversion,division and combination accordingly.When rendering English into Chinese,translation of long sentences has always been a major difficulty,and the acquisition of methods in translating long sentences will certainly be helpful to improve the ability of translators.Therefore,this report is to explore the translation principles and methods of long sentences based on the practice of Letters to a Law Student.In conclusion,the author hopes she may improve her translation skills and she may also contribute her modest efforts to the introduction of more excellent foreign texts.