A Report On Academic Text Translation Guided By Context Adaptation Theory

Context plays an important role in the translation process,and the comprehension,expression,and adaptation of the source text are inseparable from context.Therefore,this report takes Verschueren’s Context Adaptation Theory as guidance,and explores the choices of translation strategies and techniques in the process of E-C academic translation.This report takes the first two chapters of "To Be Translated or Not to Be-PEN/IRL Report on the International Situation of Literary Translation" completed by the PEN Center of various countries as translation material.Based on the research methods of case analysis and induction,this report analyzes cases from linguistic context and communicative context,and summarizes the translation strategies and techniques in the process of E-C academic translation under the guidance of Context Adaptation Theory.Verschueren divides the context into two types:linguistic context and communicative context.Specifically,communicative context consists of language users,physical world,social world and mental world.Linguistic context is composed of three parts:cohesion,inter-textuality and sequencing.The research question of this report is:in the process of E-C academic translation,which translation strategy and corresponding translation techniques can be adopted to conform with linguistic context and communicative context?The analyses show that in linguistic context,taking readers’receptivity and cognition into consideration,domestication can better help readers understand the meaning of the text and the intention that the author of source text wants to imply.And translation techniques such as amplification,division,part-of-speech conversion and four-character words can be adopted to make the translation coherent.In communicative context,domestication strategy is mainly adopted to handle social and cultural similarities.But when it comes to cultural differences,foreignization strategy is used to retain the cultural connotation,and translators can adopt translation techniques such as explanation,in-text note to make the translation smooth and satisfy the expectations of target language readers.