A Report On The English-Chinese Translation Of The Boer War(Excerpts)

This report is based on the English-Chinese(E-C)translation of The Boer War(Excerpts),a historical narrative written by Martin Bossenbroek,a Dutch historian.The Boer War tells the British Empire’s invasion of two Boer Republics over a century ago.It is found that Peter Newmark’s Communicative Translation Theory is particular useful in overcoming challenges that the translator has met in translation process.Specifically,it is conducive to translating words and terms with different cultural connotations.It helps to avoid using rigid and obscure expressions and complicated sentences,making the translation pleasing to read and clear to understand.Lexically,translation strategies,including annotation,conversion of parts of speech,and liberal translation,are mainly adopted for an explicit and comprehensible translation.Syntactically,reversion,conversion of voice,division and reorganization strategies are primarily implemented to provide the target readers with an exact,fluent,and idiomatic translation.The report is based on a real translation task that the translator has participated in the second year of the postgraduate studies.While performing the task,the translator has found that Peter Newmark’s Communicative Translation Theory is applicable to the translation of historical narrative texts.The task is conducive to enriching the translation experience and deepening the theoretical knowledge of translation.In addition,the strategies the translator used in the report may be referential for other translators and have implications for the teaching of translation.