A Report On The Translation Of Cultural Anthropology:Tribes,States,and The Global System (Fifth Edition,Chapter 3)

Translation material of this report is selected from the third chapter of Cultural Anthropology: Tribes,States,and the Global System(Fifth Edition)written by John H.Bodley.As a textbook for college students and teachers majored in anthropology,this book illustrates the development of human culture from the perspectives of tribe,states,and the global system in view of anthropological research methods and theories while guiding readers to consider the influence on contemporary society.Characterized by professional and formal style,the third chapter mainly introduces Australia aborigines' social culture and hunting-gathering life style as a part of tribal culture.Based on Peter Newmark's text type theory and strategies of communicative and semantic translation,this report analyzes the text type and functions of the source text before summarizing the difficulties during translation and offering possible solutions.This report suggests that the source text should be classified as informative text with informative function,vocative function and expressive function.To achieve the relevant functions,the difficulties in translation can be summarized into terms,passive voice,imperatives,and expressions with attitudes and emotion.To achieve informative function and vocative function,namely in dealing with terms,passive voice,and imperatives,the strategy of communicative translation should be employed,and the skills of amplification,omission,transliteration,conversion,shift of perspective have been used.To achieve expressive function,namely in translating the expressions with attitudes and emotion,semantic translation should be applied,and both structure and content have been translated in accordance with the source text.Thus,the target text is ensured to deliver information to readers concisely,to appeal readers to think,and to express the author's attitudes and emotion.This translation report summarizes the difficulties and solutions in translating the textbook in field of cultural anthropology,in hope of offering inspirations for other translators.