Report On The C-E Translation Of Interview Texts Under The Guidance Of The Interpretive Theory Of Translation

Interview texts are the transcriptions of oral communication between the interview and the interviewee.They have the general features of loose logic,intermediacy,high interactivity,and high subjectivity,which requires translators to guarantee the complete transfer of communicative sense rather than merely focus on linguistic translation.Given that the interpretive theory of translation(ITT)emphasizes sense instead of word-for-word equivalence,it proves an ideal guide to the translation of interview texts.This report explores the Chinese transcript of two interview videos assigned by the Shanghai Children’s Book Research Center.Through text analysis,a number of translation difficulties have been found.At the lexical level,the ST features Chinesespecific words,function words,and publishing terms and proper nouns.At the syntactic level,sentences with zero-subject,repetitive content,and loose structure appear frequently.At the textual level,cohesive ties are lacking in the ST.This report addresses the above translation difficulties under the guidance of ITT with the adoption of five translation techniques,namely shift,addition,omission,combination,and division,along with the literal and liberal translation methods.To be specific,liberal translation is used to deal with the translation of Chinese-specific words so as to overcome culture barriers;omission and literal translation are applied to the translation of function words to make the TT more concise without sense missing;standardization and literal translation are adopted to deal with publishing terminology and proper nouns with the aim to maintain the accuracy and consistency of translation;when it comes to translating sentences without subjects,addition is adopted to guarantee grammatical correction and also convey the unspoken meaning to the target audience;sentences with repetitive content are handled by omission combined with other compensation measures to ensure linguistic simplicity and sense equivalence;sentences with loose structure are addressed by separate or simultaneous application of division and combination to make the TT more organized and logical;as to the lack of cohesive ties in the ST,shift from nouns to reference words and addition of transition signals are adopted to enhance the cohesion of the TT.Based on the adoption of these translation techniques and methods,sense equivalence is achieved and a high-quality translation result is delivered.Meanwhile,it is also hoped that this research will provide references for the translation of similar texts in the future.