| Climate change is one of the most significant and essential research issues that have drawn human beings’attention in the 21st century since it correlates with global development and human destiny.This translation practice is based on the selection of a book,Climate Change:the Science of Global Warming and Our Energy Future（2018）published by the Columbia University Press and written by Edmond A.Mathez and Jason E.Smerdon.The book is classified as an interesting popular science reading with realistic meaning and importance,illustrating the causes and development of climate change and responding measures of climate change.This translation report excerpts and translates the preface,the prologue,and Chapter Eight（pp.229—248）,generalizing the translation difficulties,categorizing the examples of the translation difficulties,and analyzing the corresponding translation methods.Initially,the translation report elaborates the content and features of the source text,the significance of this translation task,and the structure of the translation report.Meanwhile,under the guidance of the Nord’s“translation-oriented”text analysis model,the report analyzes the source text from seven perspectives including subject matter,content,presupposition,text composition,non-verbal elements,lexis,and sentence structure,which is the base of proper translation methods and strategies.Secondly,the report extracts the vital and major translation difficulties and corresponding translation methods.At the lexical level,translation difficulties lay emphasis on technical terms,nominalization of vocabularies,and common vocabularies in scientific contexts.The translator respectively adopts annotation,conversion,and extension to reach an explicit translation.At the syntactic level,sentences with dash,sentences with the feature of literariness,and long and complex sentences are the major difficulties which can be correspondingly resolved by combination,rhetorical figures,and division in order to conform to the Chinese expressions.At the textual level,coherence and cohesion are principal difficulties and their translation methods include restructuring and ellipsis to render the translation more coherently and fluently.At the level of non-verbal elements,the translation of figures and parentheses is the challenge and the translator exploits inanimate subjects and repetition for the facilitation of the translation preciseness.Finally,the translation report summarizes and reflects upon the integral translation practice.In conclusion,the translation report indicates that the translator should acquire the correspondingly English professional expressions of such relative subjects as geology,geography,chemistry,etc.,grasp basic scientific knowledge and theories,and be equipped with better literary quality when translating the popular science texts characterized with natural science;the translator should facilitate effective translation methods more completely and proficiently to promise the fluency,conciseness,and profession of the translation;the translator should deeply analyze and reflect the features of the translation task and cultivate the spirit of keeping advancing academic researches by virtue of writing the translation report. |
