A Report On The E-C Translation Of An Illustrated History Of Western Philosophy(Chapter 2)

This report is based on the E-C translation of Anthony Kenny’s monograph: An Illustrated History of Western Philosophy and translation of philosophical concepts and logic in this practice.The developmental course of western philosophy is introduced in the source text from six aspects: ancient philosophy,medieval philosophy,modern philosophy,continental philosophy,analytical philosophy and western political philosophy.The rich philosophical subject information is contained in the source text,with philosophical speculation as to the remarkable feature.Under the guidance of ecotranslatology,these six aspects of translation are focused,including philosophical vocabularies,sentence patterns,metaphors,logics,cultural differences and cultural expressions from the perspectives of " adaptive selection of transformation." Combined with the philosophical context and cultural information,the flexible use of translation skills is contained: amplification,extension,conversion,omission,negation,inversion,digging out the philosophical logic in-depth and maintaining the ecological balance between the source text and the target language.This translation practice gives references to the rational understanding and treatment of modern western philosophy and the construction and development of philosophy,science and culture in China.Through this translation practice,the following conclusions are drawn from the report.First,the obscure logical thinking paths are contained in these philosophical texts,showing the remarkable characteristics of subject and object.Therefore,its translation’s primary task should be to realize the trustworthy and reliable philosophical implications in the target language.At the semantic level of eco-translatology,adaptive selection transformation is conducted to classify polysemy and intricate sentence patterns into philosophical categories.Second,the equivalence of metaphorical concepts between the source domain and the target domain of western philosophical concepts should be considered in translating philosophical metaphors from the communicative dimension of eco-tranlatology.The metaphorical symbols of philosophy with ambiguity should be converted to achieve intercultural communication between Chinese and English.Third,the process of corresponding political history is reflected in the unique cultural symbols in philosophical texts.The readers’ cognition of western philosophy is directly affected by the differences between Chinese and western thinking patterns.From the cultural dimension of Eco-translatology,on the premise of ensuring the complete transmission of the truth in the source language,the adaptive selection of cultural symbols is transformed to short the distance between Chinese and Western philosophical communication.