| The dermatology book Cosmeceuticals and Cosmetic Practice edited by Patricia K.Farris mainly introduces the development and marketing of cosmeceuticals,the efficacy of various cosmeceutical ingredients and the clinical application of cosmeceuticals.Up to now,no Chinese versions of this book are available since its publication in 2014.In this technical text,many sentences with inanimate subjects are applied to demonstrate its objectivity.This paper studies the translation of Chapter 1,Chapter 3,Chapter 6 and Chapter 8,which are abundant with inanimate subjects.This paper discusses the different use of subjects between English and Chinese.In the English version,subjects are indispensable,especially for declarative and interrogative sentences.Besides,subjects in English are nominal,and a verb agrees with its subject in number.In contrast,in its Chinese translation,a subject is not essential and it does not have to be nominal.In addition,English subjects are often impersonal,while subjects in Chinese tend to be personal.Based on the comparative analysis of subjects used in the original and translated text as well as existing studies on the translation of sentences with inanimate subjects,two translation strategies are emphasized: retention and shift.The strategy of retention includes complete retention and partial retention.Complete retention refers to retaining inanimate subjects and animate verbs.Partial retention refers to retaining inanimate subjects and supplementing pivotal constructions aspredicates.Shift as the translation strategy includes four methods.Sentences with inanimate subjects in the English version are translated into sentences with adverbials or adverbial clauses,sentences with extraposed constituents,sentences with animate subjects or sentences with null subjects.The two strategies,retention and shift,are adopted to ensure that the translation is faithful to the original text and conforms to the way of expression in Chinese. |
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