A Translation Report On The Hidden Dimension (Chapters 1-4 )

This translation practice report is based on the translation of the Hidden Dimension which is an intercultural communication work of the well-known American anthropologist Edward Hall.This book focuses on how people perceive and use space under different cultural backgrounds.The chapters translated by the translator cover chapters 1-4 which mainly involve the concept of proxemics originated by the author,the distance regulation and spacing mechanisms in animals,population control,crowding and social behavior in animals as well as the perception of space by different senses.Through these comparative studies of animal spatial behavior,Hall explored that the interpersonal spatial behavior of humans may possibly have underlying mechanisms similar to that of animals.Therefore,understanding and valuing the spatial experience of people with different cultural backgrounds and the need for different distances in communication is conducive to creating a more comfortable intercultural communication environment and thus better achieving the purpose of intercultural communication.According to Newmark’s text typology theory,this intercultural monograph belongs to informative text whose main purpose is to express intercultural communication facts and disseminate intercultural knowledge,information and opinions,etc.Its language features are of strong logicality and a certain degree of discipline professionalism.Based on this,the translator adopts the strategy of integration of communicative translation and semantic translation,and tries to remove the translation obstacles by implementing different translation techniques,so as to achieve better translation results.Some typical translation examples are analyzed and discussed in detail in this translation practice report.After completing this practice,the translator finds that the contents and expressions of informative text are equally important.With semantic translation and communicative translation boasting the advantages of literal translation and free translation,they can not only preserve the original language features and expressions of the source text(ST),but also produce readers effect of the target text(TT)relatively consistent with that of source text readers.At last,it is hoped that this translation practice can not only improve the translator’s translation ability,but also provide a reference for scholars in fields related to intercultural communication and non-verbal communication research.