The Unsettling Of America Culture & Agriculture (excerpts) Translation Practice Report

This report is based on the E-C translation of The Unsettling of America Culture &Agriculture(excerpts).This book is a collection of critical essays written by Wendell Berry,a famous American poet and culture critic.He has been awarded honorary titles such as “Jefferson Speaker” and “Fellow of American Academy of Humanities and Sciences”.Chapter Five of this book criticizes the phenomenon that the growing estrangement between people and land caused by people's over-reliance on technology,as well as a series of problems such as environmental pollution,loss of traditions and moral decay caused by such estrangement.On the one hand,it has historical features,because the source text is based on real events and figures;on the other hand,it shares the features of literature by applying artistic approaches of description.Additionally,the words in the source text are sharp,simple and unaffected,and some words presented in the source text have overtones.The structure of many sentences in the source text is complicated.And rhetorical devices are widely applied.Based on the analysis of the features of critical essays and this source text,the translator decides to adopt Skopos Theory as the guidance of translation.Guided by Skopos Theory,the translator aims to achieve a coherent target text in accordance with the reading habits of target language readers,while trying to keep the style of the source text.Inspired by Skopos Theory,the translator,as a whole,applies a combination translation method of free translation and literal translation,adopts such translation techniques as literal translation with annotation and the supplement of footnote to translate words in specific context and special proper nouns,adopts translation techniques including repetition,amplification and inversion to translate sentences with complicated structure and sentences with dash,and adopts translation techniques such as omission,inversion and division to make target text coherent.This report has four parts: task description,process description,case analysis and conclusion.Chapter One generally tells the background,purposes,significance and structure of this project.Chapter Two mentions the content of the source text in brief,analyses the features and difficulties of the source text as well as introduces Skopos Theory.Chapter Three,in the form of cases,probes how the translator deals with the difficulties of the source text according to the sequence of words,sentences and discourse under the guidance of Skopos Theory.Chapter Four summarizes the major findings and limitations from this project.