The Translation Of Prepositions In Geographic Texts From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

This report is based on the translation of American History And Its Geographic Conditions by American geographer Ellen Churchill Semple.The book mainly describes the development history of the United States and influence of its geographical environment.The author is mainly responsible for the translation of Chapter Eleven to Chapter Fourteen.In the process of translation,the author finds that the text involves a lot of geographical knowledge,and prepositions are frequently used.English and Chinese prepositions are greatly different.As a result,it is often impossible to translate them directly,which brings some trouble to the author.Therefore,under the guidance of the Skopos theory and its three principles,this practice report studies and analyzes the problems in the translation of “up”、“down”、“with” and “by”,and then summarizes the solutions,including conversion,division,omission and comprehensive translation,in order to provide some references for the translation of historical and geographical texts.This practice report is divided into five chapters.Chapter One is the task description,which mainly introduces the background and significance of the translation task.Chapter Two describes the task process,which respectively introduces the preparatory work before translation,the translation process and the revision after translation.Chapter Three is the present situation of preposition translation,which mainly summarizes the research status of preposition translation.Chapter Four is the case study under the guidance of Skopos theory,which is also the key chapter.This chapter first gives a brief introduction of Skopos theory and its three principles,and then analyzes the corresponding translation methods according to the different situations in which prepositions appear.Chapter Five summarizes the progress and the deficiencies of this translation task,and clarifies the direction of future efforts.