A Report On Translation Of Chapter8of A Biography Of The English Language

C.M.Millward, professor of Boston University, and Mary Hayes, professor ofMississippi State University, published a famous book, A Biography of EnglishLanguage as teaching material for the post-graduate. What is discussed in this reportis the eighth chapter Present Day English, which consists of10,139words and iscompleted by the author independently. As a teaching material, the original text isplain in language, objective in content, easy to understand and rather professional. Byanalyzing the translation process and the examples in the text, the author mainlyfocuses on the two points: first, the significance of preparation before translating;second, the skills used in translating the sentences in English into fluent Chinesesentences.Before translating, the author analyzes the original text in order to determine thecharacteristic of the translation language. During translating, in the guidance ofNewmark’s communicative translation theory, the author uses the skills of reinventingsentence structure, shifting the parts of speech and the technique of amplification toensure the fluency and accuracy of translation. After finishing the translation, theauthor proofreads the translation from time to time again to avoid errors and ensure thequality of the translation.This translation practice shows that what the translator needs is not only the highEnglish level to understand the meaning of the original text, but also a good grasp ofChinese to be clear of the difference between English and Chinese languages. Theauthor hopes that this translation practice can provide some references for latertranslation work of the same type.