Translating Long Sentences In A Brief History Of Chinese Civilization Into Chinese From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence Theory:A Practice Report

Based on the translation of A Brief History of Chinese Civilization,this practice report aims to discuss the techniques in translating English long sentences in historical documents.The selected chapter mainly depicts the Hundred Schools in the pre-Qin period in China,and the original text was written in objective,formal,yet vivid language.The translation of this text aims to provide a different perspective on Chinese history.During the translation process,long sentences appeared frequently,and caused many difficulties.Therefore,this report mainly studies the translation of long sentences in the selected text.Long sentences in historical documents are in formal register and may often appear with several clauses and complex logical connections.Under the guideline of Nida's functional equivalence theory,this report explores differences between the sentence structures of the English and Chinese languages,analyzes the translation of long sentences in the selected chapter under the criteria of "closest","natural" and"equivalent",and proposes different techniques such as sequential translation,inversion,and division to deal with the translation of those English long sentences.