Areport On The Translation Of New Directions For The Trait Approach

With the rapid development of globalization,it is of significance to enhance academic exchanges and communication among different countries.As an important resource to get a more comprehensive understanding of a subject and keep pace with the trend aboard,academic articles takes center stage in research and teaching o f many areas.Thus,the translation of academic article is of great academic value.The original texts of this translation task come from the world-leading journal on Leadership,The Leadership Quarterly.The translator selects the most representative academic article,A Literature Review and Emotion-based Model of Age and Leadership: New Directions for the Trait Approachwritten by Frank Walter and Susanne Scheibe as the translation material of the report.This academic article firstly provides a closer and comprehensive review of the existing research on age-leadership linkages,and proposes a novel,emotion-based model of age and leadership based on the theories of emotional aging and empirical studies on emotion and leadership.Furthermore,it provides new theoretical and empirical directions for further studies.This report explores how the translator finishes her translation task under the guidance of Skopos Theory.In the first part,the translator introduces the source text and the objectives of the translation task.In the second part,the translator illustrates the pre-translation preparation,the schedule of the translation task,emergency precautions and the quality-control methods.Among them,the pre-translation preparation includes the arrangement of translators in the translation task,the application of translation tools and the selection of the parallel texts.The third part proposes the theoretical basis of translating.The fourth part is case analysis,which proves to be the emphasis of this report.The translator analyzes the difficulties of translating the source text and reports the guidance of Skopos Theory to translating it.As is mentioned,t he core viewpoint of Skopos Theory,which enlightens the translator in translating,is“the end justifies the means”(Reiss and Vermeer 1984:101,cited in Nord 2001:29).According to Skopos Theory,the translator should bear in mind the functions and purposes and put the target readers in the first place in the translating process.Therefore,the translator discusses the translation of the words and phrases to offer an acceptable and readable rendering.Meanwhile,the translator adopts appropriate translation methods,such as following the original ord er,inversion and division to tackle the challenging problems of long and complicated sentences.In this way,the translation is more likely to provide information accurately,fluently and faithfully as well as fulfill the functions and purposes of the target text.Last but not least,task assessment is made to get a more accurate and authentic translation.With possible outcomes and limitations,thisreportdraws a systematic conclusion fromthe translation task.It is helpful for the translator to realize her shortcomings and improve her language skills as well as abilities in task-organization.Additionally,this report is expected to offer effective and efficient strategies for similar academic translation.