A Translation Report On Glimpsing Heaven(Introduction, Chapter One And Chapter Two)

This is an English-Chinese translation report on the first two chapters(including introduction) from Glimpsing Heaven by Judy Bachrach, published by National Geographic in September, 2014. Judy worked in a hosptice. She was inspired to do research on people who claimed having consciousness and experiences during death and were endowed with special abilities when returned. It made significant change to their later life. Judy Bachrach interviewed death travelers, medical staff and scientists engaged in this field. Glimpsing Heaven is a documentary book with medical, scientific and social value.The translator did two things before translation. Firstly, read introduction of the book carefully, knowing about the purpose and background of the original author writing this book. Secondly, went through papers and reports related to death experience, which is for restoring knowledge. The translator believes that knowing the purpose and background of this book is important for the translation being close to the source text. Therefore, the translator introduces the background and significance of translation of this book in chapter one, analyzes the text, key and difficult points and translation aids in chapter two.In the case-study chapter, the report analyzes the translation of dashes, long and difficult sentences and medical language. When dealing with dashes, different strategies were applied according to different situation, such as literal translation, free translation, no translation or combination of them. In translation of long and difficult sentences, the translator prefers structure analysis. The translator combines methods of knowledge preparation, looking up dictionary, parallel text and consulting the professional when dealing with medical language.Through the description of this translation program and cases studies, the translator summarizes the report in chapter four as follows: Firstly, knowing the purpose and background of this book is important for the translation being close to the source text. Secondly, the translator needs to enrich her own knowledge of the field that the book mentioned, such as death experience and the standstill operation. Thirdly, proofreading can help the translator find out problems, such as sentences which are not clear and coherent, mistranslated, translationese. Then revise the translation. The translator can go through the two steps for several times.