A Report On Translating The Excerpts Of Ripples Of Battle Under The Guidance Of Functional Equivalence Theory

Victor Davis Hanson is a well-known American military historian,classicist,and columnist.Hanson’s interpretation of military history is different from that of most other scholars in the same field.He mainly takes culture as his research object and discussion topic in order to explore the mutual relationship between war and culture.Ripples of Battle:How Wars of the Past Still Determine How We Fight,How We Live,and How We Think is one of Hanson’s books(published in 2003)on war history,and is supposed to have provided a new perspective for related military history research.In the book,Hanson reviews the battles of Okinawa,Shiloh and Delium,discusses and analyzes their effects on the current western culture.This paper is based on the translation practice of its first chapter:The Wages of Suicide:Okinawa,April 1-July 2,1945.In this chapter,through a detailed analysis of the battle of Okinawa,as well as the combat strategies of U.S.army,Hanson points out that the suicide attacks used by Japanese army in the Pacific War had a profound impact on American society,especially Americans’ attitude towards terrorism.Guided by Eugene Nida’s functional equivalence theory,this paper analyzes and summarizes the problems in the translation practice.The paper is divided into five chapters.The first chapter introduces the information of the translated text,including Hanson’s academic views and the reception of his work in China,as well as the content and research value of Ripples of Battle.The second chapter briefly introduces the specific process of translation,including relevant knowledge acquiring and parallel texts reading.Chapter Three gives a brief exposition of Nida’s translation theory and the applicability of functional equivalence theory to this translation practice.Chapter Four classifies and analyzes specific cases in the process of translating,and illustrates the application of functional equivalence theory in detail at lexical,syntactic,textual and stylistic levels.The translation difficulties encountered during the translating include polysemy,idiomatic expressions,translation of long and difficult sentences and reproduction of the style of the text.To solve the difficulties encountered during the translating,different strategies,such as amplification,reorganization and retention of original form,have been adopted.Meanwhile,misunderstandings that occur when applying functional equivalence theory are sorted out.In the last chapter,the author summarizes the translation practice.The author hopes that this report can enhance Chinese readers’ understanding of Hanson’s military thoughts,and that the rendering of Hanson’s work can provide reference for the translation of military historical texts.