A Report On E-C Translation Of The Excerpts From A History Of Communication Technology

Today,the impact of communication technology on the fate of mankind is deepening,but we have not yet fully understood it,and a review of the history of communication technology may give us some insights and enlightenment.This translation practice report selects the eighth chapter of A History of Communication Technology as the original text,which mainly introduces the development and influence of communication technology in the Electrification Age.The original text chosen in this report belongs to informative text,and its language is plain and logical.When translating it,the translator should grasp the accuracy and logic of the translation and convey the referential function of the source text.In order to achieve this goal,the translator needs the help of corresponding translation theories to guide the translation practice.Catford’s theory of translation shifts focuses on the semantic equivalence of the source text and the target text,which meets the translation requirements of the text,and thus serves as a guiding theory for this report.In addition,due to the influence of different thinking habits and cultures,there are great differences between English and Chinese.Hence,it is inevitable that there are defects in translation.In order to make the translation more complete,the translator makes use of the compensation strategy to make up for the defects,so as to break through the translation barriers caused by the differences between English and Chinese effectively.Guided by the theory of translation shifts and translation compensation strategies,this report explores the conjunction between them,and expounds the translation shifts and translation compensation in the process of translation by analyzing the features of English and Chinese.The main content of this report includes two parts: one is the application of level shifts and compensation with a different device;the other is the application of category shifts and the corresponding compensation.The first part includes tense marker conversion and temporal meaning compensation,quantitative marker conversion and quantitative meaning compensation,and voice marker conversion and voice meaning compensation.The second part includes structural shifts and shift of perspective compensation,class shifts and compensation in a parallel location,and unit shifts and adaptation compensation.The report not only enriches the translation practice under the guidance of translation shifts and translation compensation strategies,but also provides some reference for the translation of the same type of text.