A Report On E-C Translation Of Duke University-Faculty Handbook From The Perspective Of Semantic Translation And Communicative Translation Theories(Excerpts)

This report selects Chapter Seven and the appendixes of Duke University-Faculty Handbook as the source text.Chapter Seven gives an introduction to the ten libraries and their service,and their user guides.Appendixes systematically introduce the disciplines,the appointment and dismissal policies,and the obligations and policies in academic areas at the Duke University.Since the Duke University is the top research university in the world,its faculty handbook can serve as a reference for Chinese universities in academic management and faculty management.The report analyzes and summarizes the translation practice of Chapter Seven and the appendixes of Duke University-Faculty Handbook under the framework of Peter Newmark’s semantic translation and communicative translation theories.The selection of semantic translation theory is based on the fact that the source text is informative,and that the rendition should therefore be as accurate as possible,whereas the choice of communicative translation is based on the fact that part of the source text is in the vocative voice and should conform with the formal register of Chinese and the reading habits of Chinese readers to avoid inflexibility in the rendition.Guided by Newmark’s semantic and communicative translation theories,the author employs different strategies for various language phenomena to maintain faithfulness and fluency.In this paper,Newmark’s semantic translation and communicative translation are combined to analyze the translation practice.Under the guidance of Newmark’s semantic translation,the translator literally translates terms and most archaic words in order to guarantee the rendition is as authoritative as the source text;for other archaic words,the translator contextualizes them,choosing the most suitable expression according to the context so as to embody their contextual meaning accurately;with regard to implicit conditional sentences,the translator makes such implicit logic explicit so that the logic of rendition is in concordance with that of the source text.Under the guidance of communicative translation,the translator adopts part-of-speech conversion for nominal structures;voice conversion is used for dealing with passive sentences;and for long sentences,the translator chooses to divide them.Such techniques are designed to ensure fluency in translation and tailor the rendition to the reading habits of the target readers.The final chapter is the conclusion,which summarizes the major findings and shortcomings,as well as expectations for future related researches.Through the translation practice,the translator concludes that Newmark’s semantic and communicative translation theories can effectively guide the translation of faculty books and hopes that this translation report can serve as a meaningful attempt in this realm.