A Report On Chinese Translation Of Contemporary Perspectives On Rhetoric(Chapter 4)

This report takes chapter 4 of Contemporary Perspectives on Rhetoric as its translation material.The specific translation methods adopted in the translation of academic text with informative function are investigated under the guidance of semantic and communicative translation theories,aiming to pursue accuracy and readability of the target text.Contemporary Perspectives on Rhetoric,coauthored by Sonja K.Foss,Karen A.Foss and Robert Trapp,is an academic monograph about rhetoric.It was introduced to China in the 1990s.However,there is no Chinese version up to now.Hence,its publication can facilitate the transmission of rhetorical knowledge and the promotion of academic exchanges between China and the west,and may also attract more scholars to study rhetoric.In the 1980s,Newmark put forward his text typology and explored translation principles,that is,semantic translation and communicative translation should be correspondingly applied to different texts.The main task of an academic text is to present knowledge;hence,it belongs to informative text and thus is applicable for communicative translation.Meanwhile,the academic text is featured with strong logicality,conveying the exact contextual meaning,semantic translation is thus applicable in the translation.In the process of translation,the author of this report adopts annotation to retain the thought processes and expressions of the original author,which meets the requirements of semantic translation.According to the theory of communicative translation which focuses on the effect of information transmission,the author flexibly uses different translation methods including paraphrase,amplification,conversion,splitting-off and reconstruction,to accurately convey the information of the original text and make the translation conform to the expression habits of target readers.In the translation practice,the author concludes that it is viable and effective for semantic translation and communicative translation to guide the translation of academic text.By combining the two theories and adopting flexible translation methods,the translator can generate a target text with completeness and preciseness as well as smoothness.