A Report On The Translation Of Mass Communication:Living In A Media World(Excerpt)

In this translation practice,the source text belongs to information text,which is selected from a textbook for communication majors,Mass Communication: Living in the Media World,written by Ralph E.Hanson,an American professor of communication.Using Hans Vermeer’s Skopos Theory as a theoretical guide,the translator selects Chapter 1 and parts of Chapter 2 of the book for translation.According to Skopos Theory,the success of translation depends on whether the purpose of translation is achieved,that is,whether the function of the target text is realized.Since the book is a communication textbook,its purpose is to introduce communication knowledge to domestic college students majoring in communication-related disciplines,so that they can grasp the knowledge related to communication and media.Therefore,the translation should not be difficult and obscure,and should serve the purpose of popularizing knowledge.Therefore,the translator should consider the translation from the perspective of Skopos Theory when solving various difficulties in the translation process.In the book,the author summarizes some famous Western communication theories and puts forward his own views.At the same time,a large number of cases of Western media communication are cited,and the language is objective and rigorous but vivid.For the translator,to obtain a large number of specialized terms,understand the western media ecology and cultural background and clarify the differences between Chinese and English syntax are all difficult points in the translation process.Guided by the three rules of teleology,namely the fidelity rule,the Skopos rule and the coherence rule,the translator adopts some practical translating strategies and methods from the lexical level,syntactic level and discourse level.At the lexical level,the original text involves many mass communication nouns,terms,culturally loaded words and abstract nouns,and the translator adopts such translation techniques as transference and annotation,amplification,literal translation and annotation,and the use of Chinese four-character idioms;at the syntactic level,for complex clauses,the translator adopts the methods of division and combination;while in dealing with the passive voice,according to different situations,the translator adopts such methods as changing passive voice to active voice and passive voice to passive voice to make the translation fluent;at the discourse level,the translator adopts two strategies of logical coherence and stylistic coherence to make sure that the translation is logic.Through the translation of some chapters of this book,the translator expects to provide a readable translation for communication majors or media enthusiasts,and provide some experience for translators of the full translation of the book.