A Report On The E-C Translation Of Autobiography Iron Ambition(Excerpt) From The Perspective Of Semantic And Communicative Translation

This thesis is the English-Chinese translation report based on the prologue and the first three chapters of the autobiography Iron Ambition by American boxing champion Mike Tyson.This autobiography focuses on Tyson’s upbringing,his championships,and his relationship with his boxing and life mentor,Cus D’Amato.Recent years,a large number of foreign autobiographies were introduced into China.Autobiography is a kind of historical basis with reference value,which is of great significance to cultural communication.Besides,with distinct stylistic features,autobiographical texts are characterized by authenticity and literariness,therefore,the translation style of the autobiography can be easily grasped by the translator.The literariness of the autobiography requires the translator to accurately convey the information of the source text and realize the aesthetic value of literature.Authenticity requires the translator to enhance the readability of the target language by focusing on the reflection of the target readers.Newmark’s semantic translation emphasizes the restoration of the original style and puts the author’s thoughts and emotions in the first place.Communicative translation argues that the target readers should have the same reading experiences and feelings as the source readers.Under the guidance of these two translation theories,the translator has realized the English-Chinese translation of autobiographical texts.The preface and the first three chapters in this autobiography contain a lot of culture-loaded words,boxing terms,idioms and the nominalization of prepositional phrases instead of phrasal verbs at the lexical level.Clauses and passive sentences are applied at the syntactic level,which adds difficulties to the translation work.According to the analysis of these translation difficulties and practices,the translator has summarized the corresponding translation skills and methods with Newmark’s semantic translation and communicative translation applied.Under the guidance of semantic translation theory,the translator applies translation skills and methods of literal translation,annotation and free translation.Besides,sentence reconstruction,change of voice,and part-of-speech conversion are applied guided by communicative translation.The method of substitution is used based on semantic translation and communicative translation.With these translation theories,the translator aims to use corresponding translation techniques and methods to provide reference and enlightenment for future English-Chinese translation of autobiographical texts.