A Report On The Translation Of Drunk(Introduction To Chapter One)

Alcohol has played an important role in human civilization since ancient times.Ancient Chinese poets soaked their feelings of joy,melancholy,loneliness and sentiment into their wine vessels.Sumerian mythology also links the origins of human civilization to drinking.In the meantime,drinking is often seen as an evolutionary mistake.Edward Slingerland,the author of Drunk,taking a multidisciplinary approach,overturns previous perceptions by offering a rigorous,scientifically based explanation of why humans want to get drunk,and suggests that sometimes a drink or two can be a good thing.This report,based on the first three types of Klaudy’s typology of explicitation,finishes the translation of Introduction and Chapter One of Drunk.Klaudy categorized types of explicitation as obligatory explicitation caused by differences in the syntactic and semantic structure between the source language and the target language,optional explicitation dictated by differences in text-building strategies and language styles between the two languages,pragmatic explicitation due to the different cultural backgrounds,and the translation-inherent explicitation.The translator uses specification of tense,number,pronouns,and passive voice to achieve obligatory explicitation.Explicitation of abstract words and sentence restructuring are used to achieve optional explicitation.Last,paraphrase,idiom translation and addition of footnotes are used to achieve pragmatic explicitation.The translator puts effort in making the translation conform to the style of the source text,and become an invisible bridge between the source text and the target text readers,so as to bring the readers a relaxed and joyful reading experience.