Translation Report On Historical Academic Texts From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence

Pirates of Empire:Colonisation and Maritime Violence in Southeast Asia is a historical academic work that focuses on introducing research findings and historical knowledge.As a book for spreading historical knowledge,it contains some hidden background knowledge which some Chinese readers may not know.As an academic text,it is written in formal English with many long and information-intensive sentences.Time and logic also play important roles in the book.Nida put forward his "functional equivalence" theory.According to Nida,translators should achieve "functional equivalence" in word,sentence,text and style levels.To accurately present the culture of the source language society,translators should convey the meaning of the source text first.Therefore,the translation of Pirates of Empire should be complete,accurate and fluent.I will discuss the translation skills I used when translating specific words,background knowledge and long sentences to present a fluent translation with complete messages and accurate words.The methodology of this report is case analysis.I examine my translation and conclude two major strategies for delivering a "functionally equivalent" translation of the original historical academic text:compensation and rearrangement.Piracy of Empire has large amounts of cultural and historical knowledge,and its language is official and formal,therefore,accuracy,completeness and fluency should be achieved when translating the book.The skills of compensation and rearrangement are used to achieve the "functional equivalence".