The Translation Of Long Sentences In Academic Texts ——A Practice Report On The English-Chinese Translation Of The Ethics Of Cryonics (Excerpts)

This translation practice has selected as the translation corpus the first two chapters of The Ethics of Cryonics which discusses cryonics from the perspective of scientific ethics.As an important topic of scientific ethics,cryonics can provoke people’s deep thinking.Cryonics means rapid freezing people after natural death in liquid nitrogen at ultra-low temperatures in the hope that future technology could bring them back to life,so cryonics is faced with many different voices.The translation practice aims to enhance Chinese reader’s understanding of cryonics,and promote public discussion on relevant ethics.The translation corpus of this translation practice belongs to the academic text,which is characterized by frequent use of long sentences,rigorous and complex logical relations,and complex structures.These characteristics of long sentences constitute difficulties in translation practice.Three translation problems are encountered in the translation of English long sentences: complex structures of attributive clauses in long sentences,diversified functions of parentheses in long sentences and various ways of achieving cohesion in long sentences.The methods of preposition and splitting are adopted to tackle the problem of complex structures of attributive clauses in long sentences,the methods of fusion and sequence changing are used to deal with diverse functions of parentheses,and the methods of logical relations adjustment and amplification are used to translate various connective devices.It is hoped that this translation practice can provide reference for the translation of similar texts.