| Popular science texts aim to convey scientific knowledge of a certain field to the general public.This kind of texts boast not only specialization,but also vividness and entertainment.The content specialization and language formality of popular science texts are lower than that of scientific texts while rather higher than that of oral texts.One needs to fully understand the content and language style of the original text to accurately convey the information.The author translated several chapters of Mediation for Beginners under the guidance of register theory,and then analyzes,refines and summarizes the translation strategies of popular science texts from the perspectives of field,tenor and mode by means of text analysis method,case analysis method and comparative method.According to register theory,the register features of a text are determined by three variables,namely,field,tenor and mode.Field refers to the theme of the text,tenor refers to the tenor of discourse and mode refers to the form of language communication.In this project,the author’s translation practice is divided into two steps: analyzing the field,tenor and mode of the original text first and then reproducing them completely in the translated text.At the field level,the author mainly adopts free translation,amplification and annotation for the translation of a great variety of words in the original text;at the tenor level,the author mainly adopts logical analysis,liberal translation and word order conversion strategies for the translation of passive sentences,rhetoric and narrative mood in the original text;at the mode level,on the basis of the language formality of original text,the author mainly adopts amplification and omission strategies for the translation of conjunctions and pronouns.This translation practice once again shows the following three points:(1)register theory is capable of guiding the translation of popular science texts and its guiding role is systematic and effective;(2)field,tenor and mode interact with each other and influence each other,and that they do not exist in isolation,that is to say,field runs through tenor and mode while tenor and mode also reflect field;(3)only when we fully grasp the field,tenor and mode of the original text can we achieve a high quality translation.It is hoped that this piece of translated text can really play a role in making meditation more popular and that this translation practice can provide some references for other translators of popular science texts and translation researchers in this field. |
PDF Full Text Request