A Practice Report On The E-C Translation Of A History Of The Modern Middle East(Excerpts)

The exchanges between China and the Middle East countries have a long history.From the old Silk Road to the Belt and Road initiative,we are constantly deepening our contacts and connections with Middle East countries.Therefore,knowing and understanding the development and change of Middle East’s is particularly significant for our communication.At the same time,our demand for Chinese translations of historical texts about Middle East is also increasing.Correspondingly,the practical translation study on this type of text has become more and more important.This report selects A History of the Modern Middle East by William L.Cleveland and Martin Bunton as the source text for translation practice,taking Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 in Part One(about 12,000 words in English)as the research object of it.Under the guidance of Eugene A.Nida’s functional equivalence theory,this report is aimed at making an analysis and study on the problems occurring in English-Chinese translation of historical texts from five aspects,as title,headline,lexical,syntactic and textual levels,with using case study,comparative research and literature review methods.The author hopes to summarize the translation techniques and strategies suitable for the English-Chinese translation of historical text,and provide a case preference for such text translation research.Through this translation practice,the author concludes that Eugene A.Nida’s functional equivalence theory is applicable to the English-Chinese translation practice of historical text.In order to achieve the writing purpose of knowledge popularization,the “receptor’s response” should be taken as an important translation criterion.So,for the translation of title and headline,translators should choose literal translation,the method of amplification or omission to achieve the functions and characteristics of title and headlines.Translation of vocabulary should use transliteration,free translation or annotation to achieve semantic equivalence between the original and translation text.Translation of sentence and discourse should take syntactic linearity,amplification or conversion method to accurately convey the original meaning.This report is hoped to provide a certain reference value for the translation practice of historical text and enrich the research of such text translation.