The Application Of Translation Compensation Strategies In Historical Text

Due to the differences in language structure and cultural background,translation loss is inevitable in the process of translation,which brings difficulties to readers.As a tool to eliminate translation loss,translation compensation,can convey the hidden information of the original text to readers as completely as possible,so as to help the target language readers get the equivalent reaction with the source language readers.This translation text is taken from the British historian Harold W.V.Temperley' s book History of Serbia.The author talks about the history of Serbia from the Middle Ages to the end of the 19th century from geographic,political,and military aspects.There are a large number of vocabularies with specific cultural background in this book,such as names,places,titles etc.Additionally,due to the great difference between English and Chinese language,information loss is inevitable.In order to minimize the translation loss,the translator should adopt compensation strategies accordingly.Translation compensation strategy refers to the strategy adopted to achieve semantic equivalence in the translation process.There are a variety of translation compensation strategies,such as shift of perspective,specification,generalization etc.Based on specific text type and translation purpose,translators should select different methods at different levels to compensate the loss of the translation effects of the source text.Under the guidance of translation compensation theory,the author summarizes that in historical texts translation,compensation should be applied in two levels:linguistic level and cultural level,and the former can be further divided into lexical level,syntactic level and discourse level.This paper summarizes the typical examples in translation and concludes seven translation compensation strategies:specification,contextual amplification,shift of perspective,sentence reconstruction,logical conjunction,cultural substitution and cultural interpretation.In translation practice,applying appropriate compensation strategies in different levels can expand the limit of translatability and improve the quality of translation.In addition,these translation compensation strategies provide ideas for other translators who work on similar texts.