A Translation Project Report On Stoicism And The Art Ofhappiness(Chapter One And Chapter Two)

In the hustle and bustle of modern life,people often cannot help but be affected by various external things,suffering from emotional distress under pressure.Donald Robertson,a cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist,has explored the relationship between stoicism and cognitive-behavioural therapy in his many years of practice.Through Stoicism and the Art of Happiness,he introduces the knowledge of stoicism to us readers,and leads us to apply stoicism to modern life so as to achieve happiness.Taking the first two chapters of Stoicism and the Art of Happiness as the source text,this project aims to generate a Chinese translation which is not only close to the original text but also acceptable to the Chinese readers.In the first two chapters,the general framework and life goals of stoicism are summarized,and the essence of “good” and the elements essential to live a happy life are expounded based on stoics' “ethics”.In the source text,the meaning of vocabulary is not merely related to the sentences and paragraphs,but also concerned with the background knowledge of the entire text.How to choose and alter the semantic meanings of words requires the author to think carefully.In terms of sentence translation,how to do the work in consideration of the original sentence structure,inner-sentence logic and Chinese special expressions also brings a challenge for the author.Nida's functional equivalence theory emphasizes source language information and readers' response.Considering Nida's classification of word meaning and his introduction of three-stage translation system of sentences,the author chooses this theory as guidance and uses specific methods such as division,amplification,adjustment of word order and alteration from phrases to clauses to translate the original text.Through this translation practice,the author realizes that a good translator should not only have a good command of the language itself,but also have the ability to learn and think,analyzing and solving the problems in the translation through various channels.In this respect,the author still has a lot to improve.