A Practice Report On The Translation Of The Book Understanding Basic Music Theory

This thesis is a report of my translation practice based on the Skopos theory with an aim to gain the experience and insights I obtained from my translation practice.The material for translation is a music textbook,which had not been translated by the point I started my research.There are three main reasons for choosing it.One is my personal interest in music.The second reason is related to my worry about the quality of the translation of music teaching textbooks that I have used in my learning and teaching music.These textbooks often make the text hard to comprehend and cause severe effects on music learning and teaching.So I try to find the causes and solutions for this problem from my translation practice.The third reason is to gain knowledge and experience of the application of the Skopos theory.In Skopos theory,translation was defined as a purposeful activity that needs the translators’ consideration of some complex factors.For example,the needs of target readers,cultural difference,the intentions of the author,etc.What the Skopos theory emphasizes is the effect the translation intends to achieve on the targeted audience and the result it wants to attain through translation,both of which significantly affect the strategies and approaches used by translators during translating.The original text is the excerpt of a book on music theory.The book has not been translated by now.During the translation process,the principles of the Skopos theory are put into practice.They provide guidance for me in dealing with the translation problems during translating.The body of this thesis will be divided into several parts including Translation at Lexical Level,Translation at Syntactic Level,Translation at Textual Level.The last chapter will be on my own findings including a self-evaluation of my work and a summary of what I might have learned during translation.