A Report On The Translation Of Becoming A Translator: An Introduction To The Theory And Practice Of Translation (Introduction, Chapter 1 And Chapter 2)

As translators play an important role in people’s communication,the cultivation of translation competence is a hot topic to which much attention has been paid.The book selected in this translation practice is an academic monograph by Douglas Robinson completed in 2012: Becoming a Translator: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Translation.The translation of the book is done by a total of 5 people together as a group.This translation report includes the translation of the introduction,the first chapter and the second chapter of this book,mainly illustrating the translation study method and the translation-oriented activities including the internal and external view(namely the translator’s view and the translation user’s view).Robinson also puts in a lot of cases while elaborating translator’s profession involvement,aiming at providing a clearer view of the entire process of translation activities in order to ensure the systematization of translation program and improve the quality of translation.Based on Peter Newmark’s Text Type Theory,the book belongs to an informative text.The translator adopts Functional Equivalence proposed by Eugene Nida as the basic translation theory.Case analysis is studied on four levels: lexical,syntactic,textual and cultural level.At lexical level,some linguistic phenomena are analyzed,such as the translation of polysemy,words in specific context,metonymy,idioms and proper nouns;The translation of long sentences and passive voice are enumerated at syntactic level;The cohesive means are operated at textual level;At cultural level,footnote and annotation are presented to explain the culturally-loaded words.This translation practice leads to further comprehension of Functional Equivalence and how to apply the theory flexibly to the translation of informative texts.In addition,it is essential to acquire a large number of theoretical reading,literature references and carry on post-translation work,all of which improve translation competence and have practical experience accumulated.