A Report On The Translation Of Robot-proof: Higher Education In The Age Of Artificial Intelligence (Excerpts)

This translation practice is English to Chinese.The original text is taken from the second and third chapters of Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,whose writer is a leader in higher education policy and internationally renowned scholar,the seventh president of Northeastern University,Joseph E.Aoun.This book tells how to make of the change in higher education so that the college graduates could not be controlled or replaced by intelligent products but transcend them in the era of rapid development of artificial intelligence.According to Newmark’s classification of text,the original text belongs to informative text.The original text is featured with objective and rigorous words,formal and well-organized sentences and tight logic.Therefore,the translator pays more attention to the "authenticity" of the content expression in translation.The difficult points of this translation project lie in the following three aspects.Firstly,there appears much professional terms on technology and education;secondly,lots of words and phrases shouldn’t be translated as their literal meanings;thirdly,the original text contains a large number of long or difficult sentences.Combined with the analysises of text features and translation difficulties,the translator explores the corresponding translation strategies and methods from the lexical and syntactic levels,so as to ensure the translation is faithful to the original content and the original language style.The main translation methods include sequential method,conversion,semantic extension,inversion,division and so on.The translator reviews the whole translation process and finds that pre-translation preparation and post-translation revision play important roles in completing an ideal translation project.The translation work could be conducted smoother with the stylistic features,translation methods and difficult words figured out;the translation could be more coherence and perfect with the vocabularies and grammars modified again.The translator hopes that the Chinese people will know more about the innovative teaching models and systems in the West,so as to promote the development and improvement of higher education in China.At the same time,it is hoped that the current college students can get inspiration from the translation and take initiative to cultivate various literacies needed in the age of artificial intelligence.Lastly,it is hoped that this translation practice will play an important role in improving the author’s translation ability.