Transformation Of Topic-Prominent Into Subject-Prominent In Chinese-English Translation

This is a Chinese-English translation practice report on the urbanization of China.The original text is an excerpt from Great Nation Needs Bigger City,a book written by Professor Lu Ming.Debates on Urbanization,the seventh chapter of the original,presents some problems that migrant farmer workers and cities are facing with,and in Chapter Eight The Dilemma of Urban Social Segmentation,on the basis of further illustration of those issues,the writer analyzes the reasons and figures out some solutions to the situation.As one growing up in the environment of “migrant farmer worker tide”,the author has a deep understanding of the contents introduced in these two chapters,as well as the policies and efforts made by the government to solve these problems over the years,and therefore,feels obliged to pass onto more people China's dilemma and solutions in urbanization process.It's known to all that great differences exist between Chinese and English.From the perspective of typology Chinese belongs to topic-prominent language with “topic-comment” structure as one of the salient features while English is attributed to subject-prominent language with “subject-predicate” structure as one of its outstanding characteristic.This difference between Chinese and English requires that the author should transfer topic-prominent sentences into subject-prominent sentences in Chinese-English translation,which means a transformation of Chinese “topic-comment” structure into English “subject-predicate” structure,which is a hard nut to crack.Based on former researchers' studies on topic and subject and taking the original text for analyzing,this report explores some possible translation shills from topic-prominent to subject-prominent in Chinese-English translation.The significance of this practice report and study is as follows: Firstly,based on previous studies on theme and subject this report explores how to transform Chinese topic-prominent into English subject-prominent in different situations,which deepened the author's understanding of the difference between Chinese and English.Meanwhile,it can provide some references for further study in this aspect.Secondly,the examples employed in this study were seriously selected and analyzed by the translator,which can provide some reference for teaching courses like the Comparison of Chinese and English.Thirdly,the report is supposed to unfold the problems emerging in China's urbanization process and to promote the relevant solutions to more developing countries,with a view to providing some references for the development of the countries.