Translation Strategies Of Parentheses From The Perspective Of Nord's Functionalist Translation Theory

The source text of this translation practice comes from Discourse and Knowledge: A Sociocognitive Approach,written by Dutch linguist and discourse analyst Teun A.van Dijk,and was first published by Cambridge University Press in 2014.The book elaborates how people create and understand discourse on the basis of knowledge from the perspective of cognition,cultural and social contexts,aiming at initially constructing the theoretical system of discourse and knowledge.This translation practice involves the second chapter of the book,which focuses on the term “knowledge of nature” and defines it as “knowledge used by members of the real situation and the real knowledge group”.Van Dijk(2014)believes that discourse and knowledge complement and influence each other.People construct knowledge through discourse in society and reproduce the formed knowledge through discourse.Parentheses are widely used in the source text,which often breaks the coherence of sentence structure and meaning as well as brings some trouble to understanding.Guided by Nord's functionalist translation theory,the report analyzes the translation strategies of parentheses in the source text.Nord's functionalist translation theory stands on two pillars: function and loyalty,that is,the translation process must follow the principle of skopos and loyalty.Functionality principle means that the purpose of the translation determines the choice of translation method and strategy.Loyalty can be defined as the responsibility translators have toward both the source and target environments,as well as the sender and the target reader of the source text.The translator should not only be loyal to the original author,but also to the target reader,that is,to consider the needs of the target reader.In addition,it also includes the translator's loyalty to himself,that is,to submit his best translation.Therefore,in light of Nord's functionalist translation theory,this translation practice report classifies the parentheses according to its function.Based on that,several translation methods,such as omission,fronting,embedding and synthesis,are used to translate the parentheses in the hope of satisfying the reader's cultural demands and reading expectations on the basis of the source text.This report is composed of six chapters.Chapter One is the introduction,which mainly introduces the background and significance of the project research,the current situation of the project research and describes the task.Chapter Two is the practical process of the translation,including pre-translation,while-translation,and post-translation.Chapter Three is the theoretical framework,which introduces Nord's functionalist translation theory and analyzes the guiding significance of the theory to translation of social science texts.Chapter Four discusses the definition of parenthesis and its three language functions.Chapter Five analyzes the translation strategies of parentheses with different language functions in social science texts,and discusses how to apply translation methods such as linear translation,fronting and embedding to solve the problems in the translation of different types of parenthesis.Chapter Six is a summary of the whole translation practice,summarizing the translation experience and limitations of this translation practice.