A Report On The Translation Of University Of Canterbury's International Prospectus

With the advent of internationalization,a growing number of Chinese students desire to go abroad for study to broaden the international horizon.At the same time,many overseas universities also try to attract potential students with fabulous enrollment brochures.Obviously,international prospectuses play a significant role in the application for being international students.The author of this paper won a chance to translate the International Prospectus of University of Canterbury in September,2016.In cooperation with other two translators,the author finished the translation task on time,achieving a satisfactory translation version after the proofreading and quality assurance of the project manager.Based on the translation project,the author wrote this paper,aiming to review the whole translation process,deepen the understanding of translation practice,and also provide reference for the relative translation practice and study.University of Canterbury desires to attract more and more students to study there by giving the detailed information about surroundings,curriculums,faculties,entry requirements as well as fees in the International Prospectus.Taking into consideration the informative function and vocative function the source text intends to fulfill,the author of this paper applied Communicative Translation Theory put forward by Peter Newmark in the translation process,to make the translation text produce on its target readers an effect as close as possible to that on the readers in the domestic culture.In this paper,after briefly introducing the translation task and pre-translation preparation,the author focuses on the discussion of major difficulties encountered during the translation concerning the technical terms,sentences with informative function and vocative function,long and complicated sentences and passive sentences,and then explores the corresponding coping methods,under the guidance of Communicative Translation Theory,covering some translation techniques including diction,addition,conversion,division and omission.Diction,the choice of words and phrases,mainly contributes to tackling the difficulties caused by technical terms.Addition and omission mean adding some necessary or omitting superfluous words in target language,making the translated text semantically clear.Conversion,changing part of speech or sentence voice,is employed to make the translated version easily acceptable for the target readers.Division is adopted to divide long and complicated sentences into short sentences,with a view to avoid rigid translation.The application of all these techniques is conducive to achieve authentic expressions in the translated version.Finally,based on the whole translation process,post-task self-evaluation and the client's assessment,the author draws a conclusion that,among other things,such as knowledge about the translation theory and techniques,the excellent expression under the accuracy and fluency principles is of vital importance for the translation of international prospectus to give a more attractive introduction for the target readers.