A Report On Translating The Political Economy Of Rare Earth Elements: Rising Powers And Technological Change (Excerpts)

Rare earths are a group of metallic elements with unique physical and chemical properties.Being indispensable in the modern industry supply chain,these elements,ranked high on the list of Critical Raw Materials created by the EU in 2011,are of great significance to the economy and defense throughout the world.In recent years,the competition over access to the strategic metallic resource has intensified.Guaranteeing the stable supply of rare earths has become a hot research topic in the global academic world.Released in 2015 by Palgrave Macmillan,The Political Economy of Rare Earth Elements: Rising Powers and Technological Change is widely accepted as an authoritative scholarly publication.With the “Comprehension,Expression and Adaptation”(CEA)framework as the guidance,this report introduces the process of translating two academic papers on rare earths supply chain,i.e.,Rare Earths and Japan: Traditional Vulnerability Reconsidered and Rare Earth Elements and the European Union(hereinafter referred to as ST1 and ST2),and analyzes problems encountered in the translation process.Solutions to these problems are then put forward.This report consists of five chapters.Chapter one is the background information of the source text.Chapter two analyzes the text type of the source text and discusses the translation strategy on the basis of introducing the translation process.Chapter three introduces the CEA framework and the pertinent theoretical arguments for comprehension,expression and adaptation.Chapter four is the case analysis with the application of the CEA framework.Contextual clues,grammatical structures and lexical collocations merit great efforts for a good understanding of the source text.The translation shift theory put forward by J.C.Catford is applied as guidance for flexible expression.In terms of adaptation,annotations are added to culturally loaded words for the target text readability.Chapter five summarizes the findings and inadequacies of the translation practice.