A Report On C-E Translation Of Memoirs Of H.A.Giles(Extracts)From The Perspective Of Communicative Translation Approach

The translation material of this report is Memoirs of H.A.Giles which extends over a period of 62 years,from 1863 to 1924,when Giles stayed in China and England as a Chinese student,diplomat,scholar,translator and sinologist.The chosen text of this report illustrates Giles’ experiences of learning Chinese,his academic achievements and various obstacles he was faced from 1863 to 1883.This translation practice is beneficial for further study on overseas sinologists,for the Chinese people to renew their understanding of the Chinese culture from the extraterritorial perspective,i.e.providing a new viewpoint of understanding the Chinese culture.Communicative Translation Approach,put forward by English scholar Peter Newmark,is reader-centered,aiming to improve the readability of the target text,emphasize readers’ response and achieve the same reading effect between the original text and the target text.It advocates that in the translation,the translator should be free from the language form of the source text and removes the language barriers of the source text so as to enhance the readability and acceptability of the target text.The author of this report holds that autobiography,a kind of biographical text,is an account of personal experiences written by the author in the first perspective and features with authenticity and artistry.Communicative Translation Approach has a strong guidance for the translation of biographical text.Therefore,the author of report takes Communicative Translation Approach as the guiding theory in the translation process of Memoirs of H.A.Giles,making a flexible application of such translation techniques as conversion,amplification,omission at the lexical level,and division,passive voice into active voice,and inanimate sentence into animate sentence at the syntactic level,with an aim to make the translation smooth and in line with the language expression habits of the target language.Through this translation practice,the author realizes that Communicative Translation Approach is of guidance for the translation of biographical text;mastery of source language and target language,broad knowledge,command of commonly-used translation skills and a strong sense of responsibility are the necessary qualities of a translator.