A Report On The English-Chinese Translation Of Lessons For The Future:The Missing Dimension In Education

This is a report on the E-C translation practice of “Lessons for the Future: The Missing Dimension in Education”,written by David W.Hicks.According to the theme of the book,what is missing in education is the cultivation of the students’ ability to foresee the future.By emphasizing the importance of “future” dimension in education,the author explains the kind of ability students should have in order to cope with various challenges in the future.In the process of translating this book,which is an argumentative writing,the translator encountered problems in three aspects: lexical level,syntactical level and textual level.At first,the problems in the translation work at lexical level are the translation of proper nouns such as names and professional institutions and professional terms of education.Secondly,the challenges in the translation work at the syntactical level include the long sentences and passive voice used in this book.At last,the main difficulty found in the translation work at textual level is how to achieve coherence and cohesion in the translation.In this translation report,the solutions to the translation difficulties are summarized and analyzed.Firstly,literal translation and part of speech are applied to the translation of proper nouns according to the context.Moreover,different translation strategies and methods,such as breaking down the long sentences,translating the sentences in passive voice and reorganizing the sentences,are used rationally to enhance the readability of the translation.Finally,the methods of addition and omission are used to achieve coherence and cohesion in the target text.In this report,the difficulties encountered in the process of translation are discussed.In addition,the methods of translating argumentative writing are summarized.Finally,suggestions for improvement of the translation are provided.Through this translation practice,the translator not only improves her own translation level,but also establishes a positive translation attitude.