The Translation Of The Scientific Revolution—A Historiographical Inquiry

The original text of this report is an excerpt from The Scientific Revolution — A Historiographical Inquiry by H.Floris Cohen.The book discusses the generation and development process of scientific revolution from a historical perspective.It belongs to the text of philosophy of science,with clear language exposition and rigorous logic.What the book deals with is abstract for me and right because of this it is difficult for me to understand.This translation practice is guided by the adaptation theory.Aiming at faithful translation to the original text and flexible and adaptable to the expression and communication habits of the target language,the corresponding translation strategy is sought from four dimensions,that is,contextual relationship,language structure,the dynamics of adaptation and the consciousness of adaptation.In translation,specific skills such as division and condensation and conversion of parts of speech are adopted,so that the original meaning of the source text is more exactly conveyed,the readability of the text of philosophy of science is enhanced,the number of potential target audience is increased,and the target language readers are more fully considered.This report is divided into five chapters.The first chapter is the introduction,which mainly describes the task background and significance of this translation practice.The second chapter includes three parts:preparation,translation and proofreading.It elaborates on the preparation,the tools and strategies used in translation,as well as the subsequent proofreading work.In the third chapter,the theory of adaptation is briefly introduced in its four dimensions,and the importance of the application of the theory in translation practice is analyzed according to the linguistic characteristics of philosophical and social science texts.The fourth chapter is the case study.As the core of this report it presents the theory application.It starts from the four dimensions of the adaptation theory,that is,the adaptation of the context,the adaptation of the language structure,the dynamics of adaptation,and the degree of awareness of the adaptation process.Corresponding translation methods or strategies are presented conforming to different dimensions with the analysis of specific cases,and then the realistic problems in translation are solved.The fifth chapter is a brief review of the translation practice,summarizing the research results and pointing out the problems still existing.Meanwhile,it is hoped that the problems discussed in this report can provide reference for other translators to translate like texts in the future.