Translating Informative Texts Under The Guidance Of Communicative Translation Strategy

With the Chinese translation of Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know as an example,the thesis studies the application of communicative translation in informative texts.The book Talking to Strangers covers many case studies and surveys,aiming to question common myths about how to get on with strangers and to provide food for thought.Its target readership is those who take an interest in communication,including common people and scholars.The features of the book can be boiled down to three points:(1)case studies with lines of reasoning;(2)complex sentences with a lot of information;(3)psychological and sociological terms.That is also why the text is difficult to translate.According to Newmark's theory on text types,the book is an informative text,with part of content being expressive and vocative.Newmark holds that used for informative texts,communicative translation centers on readership,focuses on accurate messages,and produces on its readers the same effect as was obtained on the readership of the original.Therefore,the author adopts communicative translation as a guide for the translation.To achieve communicative effects,the author applies the following methods in the respects of words and sentences.On the lexical level,given that Chinese and English are divided into different language families,the author employs three methods to ensure smooth and natural translation—amplification and omission,conversion of part of speech,and four-character expression.Chinese is parataxis;English is hypotaxis.On the sentence level,there is a wide gap in sentence structures between two languages.To convey accurate information and conform to target readership's reading habits,the author applies two methods,which are analyzing messages to restructure sentences and transforming thinking habits to shift perspectives.