A Report On Chinese Translation Of Contemporary Perspectives On Rhetoric (Chapter 10)

Contemporary Perspectives on Rhetoric is an academic monograph written by Sonja K.Foss and another two collaborators,introducing more than ten famous rhetoricians and their theories in the history of western rhetoric as a whole.It has a strong reference and learning significance for rhetoric learners,researchers,and related scholars.The Shanghai Jiaotong University Press signed an agreement with Waveland Press to publish the Chinese version of the book.In this translation project,Professor Li Ke is the main translator,and the author of this report,as a member of the project team,undertakes the translation task of Chapter 10.The source text of this report is selected from the Chapter 10 of this book,which mainly introduces the rhetorical theory of Jean Baudrillard,a French thinker and an important representative of postmodern theory.The source text is a typical academic text and it has a style of biography.Therefore,the source language has both the preciseness and logicality of academic texts and the attractiveness and readability of biographical literature.In consideration of the reading needs and expectations of the target readership,the author takes skopos theory as the theoretical guidance.Skopos theory is the foundation of functionalist translation theory,first put forward by Hans J.Vermeer,a German functionalist translation theorist.According to Vermeer,translation is a purposeful activity,not a simple one-to-one process of language transformation.In view of this,skopos theory emphasizes the practicability of translation.Its core idea is that the purpose of the overall translation behavior plays a decisive role in the whole process of translation behavior.Generally speaking,the purpose refers to the communicative purpose of the translation.Guided by the communicative purpose of the translation,the overall translation behavior should take into account the intratextual and intertextual coherence,and be placed in a specific cultural background,so as to make appropriate adjustments to the target text And at the same time,the target text should also conform to the content and form of the source text to a certain extent.Therefore,in the process of translation practice,the author starts from the communicative purpose to be achieved by the target text,and takes into account the intratextual and intertextual coherence to adopt appropriate translation methods and strategies,so as to achieve the ultimate purpose of academic text translation.This report is mainly carried out from three aspects of words,sentences,and discourse,aiming to provide convenience and reference for learners,researchers,and other relevant scholars invested in translation and rhetoric.