A Report On Translating Admission Essays For Postgraduates Studying Abroad

In today’s process of economic globalization,the economic and cultural exchanges between countries increased constantly,which also greatly affected the academic exchanges between countries,especially more and more Chinese students who tend to study abroad for the purpose of learning the foreign advanced technology and experiencing distinctive culture.It is known for everyone that remarkable academic records are the prerequisite to be admitted by a prestigious overseas university.Actually,many universities,especially Ivy League in America and G5 in Great Britain,valued their prospect students’ other qualities such as extracurricular performance,including communication and coordinating skills,leadership and organizing abilities,which could be reflected by admission essays.It has been proved that admission essays are important parts to consider an applicant admitted and scholarship awarded.This thesis is intended to study Chinese-English translation of admission essays from the perspective of Reiss’ s Text Typology.After studying Text Typology and analyzing admission essays,the author came to the conclusion that admission essays with adequate contents and bright main purpose benefited much during application.However,Chinese applicants tend to make mistakes as follows.Firstly,they like to quote from famous people.Secondly,they are inclined to imitate samples in the Internet.Thirdly,they write long essays for being afraid of not express themselves completely in a short essay.At last,they are likely to present their views towards political or religious issues.Hence,the author had to reorganize the original texts before translating.This thesis is aimed at analyzing some examples in the translation project and giving appropriate translation versions applying translation skills and techniques such as diction,addition,omission,annotation and division.In order to present an outstanding essay,the author proposed some suggestions on the basis of experience gained from her translating project,namely,the translators must collect terminologies and parallel texts before translating because they always had to translate admission essays about many different majors and research concentrations which they were not familiar with.On the other hand,they had to make universities’ requirements clear.It is anticipated that the research on this project will shed light on translating admission essays and can provide suggestions for Chinese applicants who dreamt of studying abroad to write fluent and authentic admission essays.