A Three-dimensional Evaluation Of The Modern Translation Textbook:A Manual Of Translation

A Manual of Translation was first published by the Commercial Press in 1904.When the editor Yan Huiqing(1877-1950)was teaching at St.John’s University,he couldn’t find an appropriate translation textbook for his course,so he selected articles or passages from various books and newspapers and put them together to compile this translation textbook.This textbook is popular among teachers and students because of its wide selection of materials,interesting topics and practical textmaterials and elegant style.Therefore,it was revised and published several times and sold well for many years.In addition,adhering to the idea of paying equal attention to humanistic education and professional teaching,the textbook conveys the excellent moral quality and patriotism of the Chinese nation.In view of this,this thesis makes an in-depth analysis of the textbook to evaluate the characteristics and limitations of A Manual of Translation and propose its suggestions for the compilation of modern translation textbooks.Based on a careful reading of A manual of Translation,this thesis adopts several methods such as literature analysis,case analysis and comparative analysis to comprehensively understand this textbook under the three-dimensional evaluation theory.Firstly,this thesis does a literature review on the current research status of translation textbooks at home and abroad,including the textbook compilation and textbook evaluation.Secondly,the origin and development of the three-dimensional evaluation theory are elaborated.Then,this thesis makes a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the contents of the textbook A manual of Translation from three dimensions: emotion,knowledge and compilation.Finally,some suggestions are put forward for the compilation of modern translation textbooks according to the research on A manual of Translation.Through studying the characteristics and limitations of the textbook A manual of Translation,this thesis has the following findings.In terms of emotion,the textbook is rich in selected materials,involving both excellent traditional Chinese culture and Western culture,and containing profound ideology and philosophy,which is conducive to cultivating students’ patriotism and good moral qualities.In terms of knowledge,the textbook not only contains comprehensive encyclopedic knowledge to meet the needs of the society at that time,but also embodies Yan Fu’s translation principle of faithfulness,expressiveness and elegance in translation,thus broadening students’ knowledge and improving their translation skills.In terms of compilation,the textbook is clearly organized with a reasonable structure and standardized layout,which is conducive to stimulating students’ interest in learning.However,the limitations of the textbook are also found,such as the lack of combination of theory and practice and the need for further improvement of the textbook compilation system.Therefore,based on the above research findings,the following suggestions are proposed for the compilation of modern translation textbooks:(1)The selection of subjects for translation textbooks is supposed to conform to the characteristics of the era,combining translation talents with moral education to help students establish correct value.(2)The knowledge in translation textbooks needs to be comprehensive,and on the basis of the integration of theory and practice,the knowledge in related fields is supposed to be compiled into textbooks for specific groups in a comprehensive manner.(3)The compilation of translation textbooks should be reasonable and clear so that students can absorb and master the relevant knowledge of translation discipline to the maximum extent.