Contextualization In Translation

As China is frequently communicating with Africa these years in literature and culture,scholars at home have started to shift their focus to studies on African literature in English.At the meantime,as Abdulrazak Gurnah,an African writer,won the Nobel prize in literature,scholars overseas begin to pay more attention to African literature in English.This is why the analysis and English translation of related works are of high value.This translation project takes an academic work entitled A Study of the Progress of Botswna Literature in English as the text to be translated.Since the book,written in Chinese,introduces African literature in English,the translator should give full play to his subjectivity in the translation process by putting himself into the context of the source language and applying appropriate contextualized translation strategies.By doing so,the translated text can be so informative,academic and readable that fans of African literature in English around the world will be provided with a precious reference to read.The translation report analyzes and compares the original text and the translation.It is found that due to the particularity of the text,the difficulty of this translation practice is how to balance the academics and literariness.By text analysis,the translator finds out that context is the key to translate academic texts.Guided by concept of contextualized translation and based on text features,the translator employs such translation strategies as back translation in a flexible manner and searches for relevant materials to deconstruct and reconstruct the context in translation from the aspect of language,culture and aesthetics,in an attempt to restore the accuracy,readability and aesthetic features of the original text so that Chinese academic works can be better translated and introduced to the world.This report can be divided into five parts.The introduction introduces the project background,analyzes the background and feature of the original text,overviews the research status of the studies on academic translation at home and abroad,and enunciates the concept of contextualized translation,The following three chapters revolves on contextualized translation and analyzes the translation process with persuasive examples.Chapter I studies linguistic contextualization from the perspective of word selection,back translation and textual coherence,focusing on how text-based back translation constructs linguistic context;Chapter II analyzes cultural contextualization from the perspective of Chinese culture,Botswana culture and cross-cultural differences;and Chapter III discusses aesthetic contextualization from the perspective of aesthetic form,aesthetic meaning and aesthetic image.The last part summarizes thoughts and gains of the translator through this translation project.The translation will be published by Southwest University Press.The translator hopes to improve translation skills and offer suggestions to the future translation of academic works on literature.