A Report On The Translation Of The Death And Life Of The Great Lakes(Chapter 4-5)

This is a report on the English-Chinese translation of The Death and Life of the Great Lakes written by Dan Egan.And the fourth and fifth chapters are viewed as the source text.As an environmental journalist,Dan Egan has been committed to reporting threats brought about by economic development to the Great Lakes since 2003 so as to draw wider attention.Considered as a landmark work of depicting the current situation of the Great Lakes,The Death and Life of the Great Lakes is bound to be the crucial material for investigating and researching the ecological environment of the Great Lakes.Owing to its high social value and strategic and practical significance,the translator chooses it as the source text of the translation practice.Divided into ten chapters,the book describes the development and change of the Great Lakes and points out that economic development and human activities have a devastating influence on the Great Lakes.Hence,suggestions are advanced to bring a bright future for the Great Lakes.In the chapter 4-5,it chronicles the successive invasions by mussels and Asian carps and explains how they have decimated native species and endangered the entire United States.Being comprehensive with the rigorous structure,the book,as an informative text of a blend of masterful reporting and elegant writing,covers terms relevant to marine organisms,seaway and shipping and proper nouns such as names of organizations,places,and people and,there also remain long and complex sentences and passive voice,which leads to difficulties of translation.In order to unfold the accuracy and logic of the source text,the translator follows Nida's functional equivalence theory,coupling with specific translation approaches including literal translation,free translation,annotation,sequential translation,reconstruction,division and conversion,to tackle difficulties for the purpose of accurately conveying the message of the source text and rendering the target text smooth,natural,compact and fluent to be in accord with the habitual syntactic pattern of Chinese so as to provide maximal comprehension and appreciation on the part of the target readers.And the translator holds that English and Chinese which belong to different language families can achieve the communication by seeking equivalents and reorganizing the form and semantic structure of the information in an appropriate manner.Accordingly,the translator devotes energy to finding the closest equivalent in the process of translating in order to reproduce the message of the source text as perfectly as possible.It is universally acknowledged that environmental problems have intensified sharply with the development of social economy in recent years,which has left a severe impact on human development,with the result that the survival of mankind is facing a severe challenge within the context of the complex and worsening ecological landscape worldwide.Therefore,selected translation of The Death and Life of the Great Lakes is supposed to raise considerable public concern over the urgency to protect the ecological environment and provides a frame of reference for the construction of ecological civilization.