A Practice-based Study On Translation Of Passive Constructions In Creative Construction:the DNA Of Sustained Innovation

Translation of passive constructions has always been a challenge for translators.Chinese passive constructions differ dramatically from English ones in terms of their structures,semantic prosody,and so on.Research on translation of the English passive constructions is of great importance.It not only helps us learn more about passive constructions in both languages,but also provides new ways of translation.The author conducted the study on the basis of her own translation practice of Creative Construction——the DNA of Sustained Innovation,a latest book by Professor Gary P.Pisano.Focusing on sentences with passive constructions,the author aims to find out some of the most frequently used translation methods as well as their features and usage.As for the major findings,the author used in total 6 translation methods during the translation practice.Three of them won't change the word class of action verbs in the English passive constructions.They are,namely,translating the passive sentences in English into 1)syntactic or lexical passive sentences,2)patient-subject sentences,and 3)active sentences in Chinese.The other three involve changes of word class of the action verbs.They are 4)converting action verbs into nouns,5)converting them into adjectives,and 6)paraphrasing or omitting the action verbs.As for practical usage of these methods,the author would avoid using syntactic or lexical passive sentences in the target text unless the corresponding source text involves negative semantic preference.Patient-subject sentences would be adopted when the source text involves certain subjective judgements and emphasizes the patient.The most frequently used method is to translate English passive sentences into active ones.Because of the richness and diversity of Chinese active sentences,such translation method helps enrich the language of the target text.And with action verbs in the source text being translated into nouns or adjectives,or even being paraphrased or omitted,the target text becomes more flexible in style,and meets Chinese readers' taste better.