A Report On The Translation Of Songs Of Blood And Sword (Preface To Chapter1)

This is an English-Chinese translation report.The original text is an exception from Preface and Chapter 1 from Fatima Bhutto's Songs of Blood and Sword.This memoir tells the history of Bhutto family.The author Fatima Bhutto whose grandfather is the former Pakistan president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was born in the prominent Bhutto family in Pakistan.The report systematically introduced the translation process.The writer introduced the methods to solve the problems in the course of the translation from the prospective of Contrastive Studies of English and Chinese.While westerners think logically,Chinese thinking is subjective,which results in many differences between English and Chinese.English prefers nouns and prepositions,while Chinese prefers verbs.English often employs an impersonal style;conversely,Chinese always goes with personal style.With plenty of subordinate clauses,English sentences are comparatively longer and complicated than that of Chinese,but Chinese has minor sentences.Passives of various forms are frequently used in English,but Chinese generally prefers to use active forms.So the text was translated under the strategies of conversion.The writer also converted the English passive into the Chinese active.For some long sentences with subordinate clauses and phrases,the writer divided the sentences into parts and rearranged them.Through the completion of the project,the writer improved her translation ability and learned Pakistan's culture.This project helped the writer realize that the improvement of translation ability needs not only the improvement of language competence but also knowledge of Contrastive Studies of English and Chinese.