A Report On Translating Who Gets What-and Why

Along with the development of economic diversification,economists tend to employ market design system to deal with the allocation of scarce resources.However,research on market design in China is still at initial stage.Few academic monographs have been documented on market design in Chinese contexts.Furthermore,even fewer studies have been conducted on academic monographs translation.For all those reasons,the report seeks to study the English-Chinese translation of an academic monograph—Who gets what—and why.As one main representative of Polysystem theory translation theorist,Toury(1980)puts forward translational norms which promote cultural turn in the field of translation research.Toury’s(1980)translational norms,which relate to decisions made by translators,translation strategies adopted during translation processes and social-culture environment of target languages,provide rational explanations for features of academic monographs.Furthermore,translation research of translational norms are limited to literature translation.Hence,Toury’s(1980)translational norms are adopted to address the features of economic academic monographs.To manifest the application of Toury’s(1980)translational norms in English-Chinese translation of academic monographs,the author translated Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 form the academic monograph Who gets what — and why.On this basis,the author analyzes EnglishChinese translation of academic monographs from the perspective of initial norms,preliminary norms and operational norms.Through summarization of translation practice and theoretical analysis,conclusions are drawn as follows: from the perspective of content,the translated version should adhere to the target language and culture;in terms of writing style,the translated version should be faithful to the original text;lastly,translation strategies such as addition,omission,choice of words,shift of parts of speech and negation are effective methods for English-Chinese translation of academic monographs to make the translated text be both faithful to the original textand acceptable to target readers.In addition,through this translation practice,the author recognized that patience,persistence,a broad range of background knowledge,and profound theoretical knowledge are essential elements for translators to achieve good translation.Despite the implications,limitations exist in this report as well,such as the lack of background knowledge,inexperience in academic monograph translation,and so on.