A Report On The Translation Of Historical Text From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

The year of 2020 witnessed the official establishment of a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way in China and also the 125 th anniversary of Tianjin University founded in 1895.The historical coincidence functioned as an unprecedented opportunity for TJU to publicize itself internationally.In this context,its Publicity Department compiled the historical materials in accordance with the chronological order into a systematic book of over 30,000 Chinese words entitled Peiyang’s Diary.The author of this dissertation participated in the C-E translation and proofreading of this book and developed the relevant analysis and research into the translation report,in the hope that following translators have the access to concrete reference of the translation skills of historical records.This book selects 365 historical events of upmost importance in each day from January 1st to December 31 st over the past hundred years(1895–2015),records them in details and compiles them in the form of “today in history”.The recorded events include the founding of the university and the deeds of successive school leaders and well-known alumni.In consideration of the textual features of the informative text and the client’s demand for the translation’s understandability for the target readers,the author chooses Skopos Theory of German Functionalist School as the guidance to strike the balance between the authenticity and idiomaticity while the client’s appeal can be successfully fulfilled.This report consists four main parts.The first chapter is the description of translation task,which introduces the background,the basic situation of the task and its textual features.The second chapter is the translation process,including the preparation,the translation and the proofreading.The third chapter is the translation case analysis,a core part among the four,which introduces the origin and development of Skopos Theory in four stages and classifies the translation cases into lexical,syntactic and textual level,aiming at unearthing the valuable skills under the guidance of Skopos Theory.The fourth chapter is the summary of translation practice,listing the gains from this practice and pointing out in which aspects we should be more experienced.Through this translation practice,the author summarizes the translation problems of highest frequency in lexical,syntactic and textual level and presents the specific translation methods and skills.In addition,this paper successfully extends the feasibility of Skopos Theory in the field of non-literary translation by its effective guidance in historical text,which further confirms the practical value and the significance of standardizing translators’ behavior of Skopos Theory.