A Translation Report On Lessons: My Path To A Meaningful Life

Lessons: My Path to a Meaningful Life is an autobiography of Gisele Bundchen,a world famous model,published in 2018.In this book,the author shares the joy,anger,grief and happiness of life in simple and straightforward word,so that readers can understand the diversity of thinking and living habits in the west,which has a certain cultural value;Listing the experiences and lessons in life in a way that gives warmth to people,the author points out the direction for contemporary women to solve their puzzles,which has applicability and enlightenment and offers certain social value;Meanwhile,on account of a set of fanatical fans who admire Giselle’s outstanding appearance and inspirational image,it will produce economic benefits for the translation and publication of her book.Therefore,some chapters are selected as materials for translation practice.Having described the background,purpose and significance of this project,this report introduces the author,content and language features of the source text briefly and expounds the whole translation process.Then guided by Catford’s shift theory,a series of problems in differences between English and Chinese in the process of translation are solved through a large number of case studies.On this basis,it attempts to expand the theory and makes a summary at the end of the report.Facing those problems,this report analyzes the level shifts and category shifts in terms of words,grammar and syntax,guided by Catford’s translation shift theory.Among them,the level shifts are embodied in the plural and singular changes of nouns and the conversion of verb tense,and category shifts include structure shifts,class shifts,unit shifts and intra-system shifts.In this practice,structure shifts are divided into: passive and active voice,negative and affirmative sentence,personal and non-personal subject and post-modifier and pre-modifier;Class shifts include the conversion of nouns,verbs,adjectives,adverbs and prepositions;Unit shifts consists of the conversion of words,phrases,clauses and sentences at different levels.At each level,the case study is combined to meet the authenticity of autobiography.However,this theory has certain limitations.Except staying at the linguistic level,it neglects the study of paragraphs,chapters and even the whole text,and pays no attention to rhetoric,culture and style.Therefore,on the basis of this theory,the translator attempts to increase the analysis of culture,rhetoric and style through case study to express the aesthetic feeling of literary works,so as to convey the literary feature of autobiography and enhance the coherence and readability of translation.It is a new attempt and an extension of this theory.