A Report On The Translation Of A History Of The English Speaking Peoples Volume Three (Excerpts)

It is a report on translation based on Cognitive Linguistic Theory.The source text(hereinafter referred to as ST)of the translation is chosen from the chapter 17 to chapter 19 of A History of the English Speaking Peoples Volume Three,which totals more than 10,000 words.This volume is the third episode of the book——“The Age of Revolution”,which mainly describes the three major revolutions that took place in western countries from the end of the 17 th century to the end of the 18 th century.Winston Churchill,the author of the book,is not only a renowned politician and speaker,but a historian and outstanding writer who ever won the Nobel Prize for Literature.The publication of the Chinese version of the book is believed to help Chinese readers have a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the history of western countries,and to provide historical materials and references for scholars specializing in western history.As a historical masterpiece,ST not only depicts numerous historical events,but portrays many outstanding people in the western history.In addition,the book is acclaimed for its penetrating insights and comments.Therefore,the translator must perceive the essence of the source text between the lines to understand the objective world represented in the book and a subjective world built by the author himself,with an aim of reproducing the content and thought of the source language text in the target language text.Compared with traditional translation theories,translation from the perspective of cognitive linguistics attach greater importance to the interplay between experience and cognition,and emphasize more translators' subjectivity and creativity,which plays a very important role in guiding translation practice.Based on the Frame Theory and Figure-ground Theory from the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics,the report discusses the strategies of identifying the exact meaning of polysemant and the English-Chinese translation of passive and inverted sentences.