| This translation material is an excerpt from The Art of Readable Writing by Rudolf Flesch,a researcher at Columbia University and a writer.The issue of readability has been discussed for a long time in Europe,but it is the author’s book The Art of Readable Writing that gives comprehensive and profound research and discussion of the issue.This book was published in 1949,mainly about how to write readable articles.In the book,there are two famous formulas,the readability formula and the human interest formula.These two formulas have been widely used in all fields.In this book,the author describes in detail how to use these formulas to evaluate the readability and human interest of an article or books.The book is with a unique perspective,which can help to improve people’s understanding of English writing.However,at present,the translation of this book has not been published in our country.The contents of the excerpt include: how to choose condensed words;correction of errors in the use of “which” and “that”;how to make the article easy to understand;the introduction and illustration of the evaluation criteria of “readability”and “human interest”;how to achieve clear writing.The translator should pursue the equivalent translation of the original content and reproduce the original content accurately.From the perspective of semantics,the translator discusses the translation from three aspects of words,sentences and paragraphs under the guidance of Leech’s seven types of meaning.This paper discusses the realization of the translation of Leech’s seven types of meaning,and points out that in order to achieve equivalent translation,the translator must pay attention to the expression of the seven types of meaning.This goal is mainly achieved by logical reasoning and word meaning transformation.In the author’s opinion,we should first understand the seven meanings in translation,and then use various skills to translate the original text.As to conceptual meaning,we should pay attention to the discrimination of the concrete meaning of words.As to collocative meaning,the understanding of words and the analysis of context as well as the expression of language should be paid attention to in translation.As for sentences,connotative meaning should be paid attention to and the translation of it can be achieved through the transformation from abstraction to concreteness.For thematic meaning,the content that the author wants to emphasize should be focused on.When translating social meaning,the whole style of paragraphs and connection between sentences should be paid attention to.Through the analysis of examples,the author summarizes the skills and difficulties of meaning transformation in order to provide reference and experience for the readers. |
