A Report On The Chinese Translation Of Elements Of International Law(Excerpts)

In the book Elements of International Law,published in 1836,Wheaton,the author,has made a large number of descriptions,citations and analyses on the successful cases of Britain and the United States,the most powerful countries in the world at that time in the development of their respective political and economic fields.The book contains the rich thoughts and concept of international law in modern western countries.It is of great significance for the development of our national law to translate them into Chinese.The existing Chinese version was translated by the American missionary Ding Weiliang in the Qing Dynasty,but it is neither the modern Chinese version nor the full version,which will cause some reading difficulties for today’s reader.Therefore,this translation report mainly translates the selected chapters of the Elements of International Law(Ding Weiliang’s translation version: The Public Law of the Nations)into modern Chinese version,sorting out the problems encountered in the process of translation,finds appropriate solutions,and then forming its own understanding and summarizing the translation experience.In this report,Functional Equivalence Theory is applied to translation practice.Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory focuses on the reader’s reflection and tries to reproduce the original information in the closest and most natural equivalent language so that the target readers can understand and appreciate the original as well as the original readers.The Functional Equivalence Theory is based on the equivalence of meaning and style.It emphasizes that the response of the target readers to the target text is basically the same as that of the original readers.Therefore,the author adopts Eugene Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory as the research support,combines the characteristics ofChinese and English,and systematically discusses the translation methods and skills of legal style,which provides great help for the author’s translation practice.The first part of this translation practice report is the elaboration of the basic framework of the whole translation report,followed by a detailed introduction of the translation process,a description of the theoretical basis applied to this report,and then a case analysis of the problems existing in the translation process of the original text and the search for corresponding solutions.Finally,it is the overall summary of this report.Through the analysis of specific cases,the author studies the translation of the Elements of International Law from the perspective of Chinese translation practice,hoping to re-translate it on the basis of the original version of The Public Law of the Nations,so as to adapt to the plain and common vernacular in this era,which is more conducive to the spread of legal language.Through this translation practice,the author not only increases some legal knowledge,but also has a deeper understanding of legal English translation.And also,she realized that translators need to constantly perfect our professional knowledge in order to better serve the legal translation work.