A Report On The Translation Of History Of The Roman Empire (Part Ⅱ Chapter 1-2)

This paper is a translation report.The original text is selected from History of the Roman Empire written by Thomas Keightley,an Irish writer.The translator is responsible for translating the first two chapters of volume 2 of this book,which mainly tell about the historical events that took place during the Roman civil war in 69 AD.Major historical events include battle of Bedriacum,burning of the Capitol,German War,destruction of Jerusalem,etc.Four Roman emperors appeared in the same year including Galba,Otho,Vitellius and Vespasian,which was also known as the “Year of the Four Emperors”.It was Vespasian,the first emperor of the Flavian Dynasty,who ascended to the throne,ending the civil war.This translation report is focused on the translation strategies of culture-specific items.The translator divides culture-specific items in the source text into ecological culture-specific items,material culture-specific items,social culture-specific items,religious culture-specific items and linguistic culture-specific items according to the definition of culture-specific items put forward by Aixela and the classification standard of culture-specific items proposed by Nida.The translator also classifies these five culture-specific items in detail according to specific contexts in the target text.Finally,the translator made a detailed analysis of the translation examples based on Aixela’s eleven translation strategies of culture-specific items.In the process of translating culture-specific items in the source text,orthographic adaptation,extratextual gloss,intratextual gloss,limited universalization,naturalization and autonomous creation translation strategies are frequently used;absolute universalization,linguistic(non-cultural)translation strategies are less used;but repetition,synonymy and deletion translation strategies are not used.During the process of translation practice project,the translator has a detailed understanding of religion,church,architecture,literature,law,etc.of the Roman;having carefully studied the relevant translation theories and strategies of culture-specific items and deeply realized the importance of cultural background knowledge to translation practice.