A Report On The Translation Of Astronomical Thoughts In Ancient China From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence

With the rapid advancement of science and technology in recent years,the status of cultural soft power in comprehensive national strength have become increasingly important.As an indispensable part of the excellent Chinese traditional culture,science and technology classics have recorded the brilliant achievements in various scientific fields in ancient China.Among them,astronomy had long been a world leader.The English translation of astronomical science and technology classics can not only facilitate the foreign communication of excellent traditional culture but also improve China’s international status.Guided by the functional equivalence theory proposed by Nida,the author selects and translates part of the fourth chapter of Astronomical Thoughts in Ancient China.The selected chapter systematically summarizes the ancients’ different views on the generation of the moon phase and the lunar maria,which has a positive contribution to the understanding of the development of astronomical thoughts in ancient China.This translation practice report contains five chapters: The first chapter introduces the research background,purpose and significance of this translation practice as well as the author and content of the original text.The second chapter is about the translation process,which includes three steps: pre-translation,translation and post-translation.The third chapter is the literature review,in which the researches on the English translation of Chinese science and technology classics and functional equivalence theory are introduced.The fourth chapter analyzes the translation from lexical,syntactic and textual levels,and emphasizes the guiding role of functional equivalence theory in the translation process.The fifth chapter is the author’s review and summary of this translation practice.The author proposes that,guided by the functional equivalence theory,translators should apply various translation methods: At the lexical level,the author deals with terminologies and proper nouns in the source text by using liberal translation and addition of annotation respectively;at the syntactic level,considering the objectivity and logicality of scientific texts,the author converts active sentences into passive sentences and combines loose and short sentences into logical long sentences;at the textual level,textual cohesion is achieved by adopting substitutes,adding conjunctions and reiterating words,so that a translation that not only fully conveys the meaning of the original text but also conforms to the reading habits of the target readers can be obtained.