The Application Of Communicative Translation In The Chinese Translation Of How The World Really Works

This report is based on the translation of the latest popular science book How the World Really Works by the Canadian scholar Vaclav Smil.Dedicated to the layperson,the book covers topics on energy,food production and other five aspects concerning the basic workings of modern life.It is written in a strict,thorough way with many long,complex sentences,parentheses and sometimes unfamiliar terms,which can cause difficulties in translation.Appropriate translation techniques are needed to render the text effectively into English.For the convenience of discussion,the report adopts definition of language proposed by the British translation theorist Peter Newmark,and summarizes the adopted techniques used at lexical and grammatical level with the help of Newmark’s communicative translation.The translation techniques include non-translation,annotation,specification,amplification,omission,conversion,inversion and division,with each illustrated with examples.The mentioned techniques make possible the translation version to be both scientifically accurate and accessible for readers,which can facilitate the popularization of scientific knowledge.The techniques summarized in this report and all the examples that help illustrate the techniques can provide some references for popular science translation.