An E-C Translation Report On Babylonians And Assyrians,Life And Customs(Excerpts)

This is an English-Chinese translation report of the book Babylonians and Assyrians,Life and Customs,written by a British Assyriologist Rev.A.H.Sayce in 1899.The book introduces the life and customs of Babylonians and Assyrians,including the geographical environment,agricultural development,family structure,education,religion and law.This translation practice report is written on the basis of the translation of the first and the second chapters of the book.The translation report includes three parts,namely,the preparation before translation,analysis of the target text and the conclusion.Firstly,in order to convey the source information objectively and accurately,the translator consults many relevant historical materials,and selects Babylonian and Assyrian Civilization,and Great Empires of the Past: Empires of Ancient Mesopotamia as the parallel texts.Secondly,the translator expounds several difficulties encountered in the translation process from the two aspects of lexis and syntax,and proposes corresponding translation methods by showing examples.At lexical level,annotation is used to translate proper nouns to help readers to have a better understanding of the target text.Choice of word-meaning is applied to deal with polysemy words,and conversion to the word class.At syntactic level,shifts of voices is adopted to translate passive sentences.And the methods of linear translation,division,and inversion are used in translating attributive clauses and long sentences.Lastly,the translator summarizes her experience during the translation.Through this translation practice,the translator's ability from English into Chinese has been trained,which lays a good foundation for her future study and work.In addition,the translation of Babylonians and Assyrians,Life and Customs provides references for those who conduct researches on Assyriology,and it helps readers to further understand the culture and history of Babylonians and Assyrians.