A Report On E-C Translation Of Getting Personal (Excerpts) From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

In the process of cultural exchange and integration between different countries and regions,the translation of essay brings cultural characteristics and linguistic styles of the source country into the target country.The source text of this translation report is a personal essay named Getting Personal written by Philip Lopate,an academician of American Academy of Arts and Science.Hailed by the American media as “Montaigne of the United States”,he has published four personal essay collections so far.He has been awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and many other awards for his great job in nonfictional writing.The author of this report uses Lopate's personal essay as the translation material.With the guidance of Verschueren's Adaptation Theory,the characteristics about the structure and style of personal essay and translation methods adopted at lexical,sentential and suprasentential levels are summarized.Personal essay is generally based on the writer's memories and is narrated through first person perspective.The language is usually simple but expressive,and each section is well-organized.Therefore,at the lexical level,through the use of four-character words,the author tries to show the conciseness and vividness of the words used to describe characters in this personal essay.And in order to paint the pictures of different scenes and characters' conflicts,the conversion of part of speech is adopted.Sentences in personal essay are based on the writer's inner experience and real feelings.They are composed of much fragmentary information,thus sentence splitting and rearrangement of sentence order are mainly carried out at the sentential level to adapt to its original style.In addition,at the suprasentential level,the writer pays more attention to the integrity of each individual plot rather than the whole content.To keep the coherence and logic order of the suprasentential ingredients,the author takes references and conjunctions into careful consideration and uses the means of repetition and omission.It is hoped that this translation practice and report can help more Chinese readers to know more about personal essay and promote the translation as well as research of it.