A Translation Report On The Unspeakable Mind(Excerpts) Under The Guidance Of Newmark’s Translation Theories

This translation report is based on the translation of the Prologue,Introduction and a portion of Part 1 of the psychiatric book The Unspeakable Mind under the guidance of Peter Newmark’s semantic and communicative translation theories.In the book,with a narrative tone,the author Shaili Jain offers the reader a textured portrait of PTSD(post-traumatic stress disorder)from her perspective as a psychiatrist and PTSD specialist with almost two decades of clinical experience.In a world surrounded by trauma,this book is a ray of sun light,reaching and warming every one of its readers.Therefore,the book is of great value in translation and transmission.The most remarkable feature of the source language is that: in the process of introducing PTSD,there are also many narrative stories about either the PTSD patients,or the author herself.In other words,the source text is expressing both the medical information and human emotions.So,the methods of semantic translation and communicative translation proposed by Newmark(2001)were adopted as the foundation of translation,in conveying the closest contextual meaning(form,information and emotions)of the source text in a reader-friendly way.However,due to large differences between Chinese and English in the manner of expression,the greatest challenge in translation process is how to maintain the original contextual meaning to the greatest extent while being accepted by its target readers.Bearing this in mind,the translator has made analyses to translation cases in two aspects: semantic analysis and structural analysis;and seven translation methods—“literal translation”,“free translation”,“rephrasing”,“amplification”,“linear translation”,“sentence order adjustments” and “division”— have been applied in making slight adjustments in translation.Last but not least,the whole process of translation task has enlightened the translator in many ways.