A Report On The Translation Of How Bad Are Bananas? (chapter 3)

The readers of popular science text are non-professional lay public,so its language is concise,clear and easy to understand.In English popular science text,the passive voice is widely used.The passive voice in English can be used more objectively to describe science knowledge.While in Chinese,the passive voice is not used often.Therefore,when we translate the passive voice in English,we should strive to make the translation more accurate and fluent,based on the relevant principles of translation.This translation practice report is based on translating How Bad Are Bananas? The carbon footprint of everything,which is an English popular science reading about low-carbon lifestyle,the translator extracts the third chapter as the practical material.Under the guidance of the functional equivalence theory,the translator focuses on the translation of the passive voice in practical materials.According to the functional equivalence theory,the translation does not need to adhere to the form of the source text rigidly.It is important that the meaning is equivalent and the translation is natural and fluent.According to different language and different context,we should choose the appropriate translation strategy.This paper mainly includes five parts: First,describe the source and languages features of the translation task;second,briefly introduce the definition and characteristics of the passive voice;third,describe the translation process;fourth,analyze the sentences using the passive voice in the source text,and summarize the translation strategies;fifth,get a conclusion.In the case analysis part,the author mainly adopts four translation strategies to translate the passive sentences in the original text.The author respectively translated the original passive voice sentences into Chinese passive sentences,Chinese active sentences,Chinese non-subject sentences and Chinese determinative sentences.Among them,the strategy of translating into Chinese passive sentences is divided into two cases,one is the literal translation using the word “被”,the other is the using of other words with passive meaning.There are two kinds of situations in which the English passive sentences are translated into Chinese active sentences: the subject of the original text acts as the subject in Chinese translation;the subject of the original text acts as the object in Chinese translation.By analyzing the above four translation strategies,this paper introduces the Chinese translation approach of passive voice in English popular science reading.