Application Of The Coherence Rule In Translating Biography

The translation task—Women Spacefarers—Sixty Different Paths to Space is initiated by a publishing house.The source text is a biography,which details legendary stories of 60 female astronauts and knowledge of universe and space exploration.It is claimed by the initiator that the target readers of the translation are those who are interested in space and aviation.Thus,the primary goal of the translation work is to ensure the target text be fluent and coherent.The purpose of the initiator is to further disseminate space knowledge and deepen readers' cognition for aerospace and female astronauts in history.The strategy adopted in this report is to achieve acceptability of the translation,aiming to maintain fluency and coherence and to guarantee the target text readers to fully understand the expressions and intentions of the source text author.The translation strategy is based on the coherence rule of the Skopos Theory proposed by Hans Vermeer.Being divided into three parts,the case study of this report focuses on the application of the coherence rule in the translation of names,technical descriptions and literary descriptions.To achieve intra-coherence of the target text,it is necessary to adopt different translation methods in the process of translation,for example,literal translation with footnote or figure,amplification,deletion,division and inversion,etc.The major finding of the report is that it is appropriate to apply the coherence rule in the biography.It is a new attempt to translate a biography under the guidance of the coherence rule,which aims to expand the scope of applying the Skopos Theory to achieve acceptability of translation.This report can be useful to provide relevant references for other translators in the study of biography translation.