A Practice Report On The English-Chinese Translation Of Science Popularization Text Under The Guidance Of Skopos Theory

This thesis is a translation practice report of Chapter Four of What the Future Looks Like: Scientists Predict the Next Great Discoveries and Reveal How Today’s Breakthroughs Are Already Shaping Our World,a book edited by Jim Al-Khalili,a professor of physics from Britain.Being a collection of science popularization essays,the book is designed to introduce scientists’ predictions about the future of technology and show how science is changing the world with simple and comprehensible sentences though it contains lots of technical terms.The Skopos Theory of the German functional translation theory emphasizes that the purpose of translation determines translation strategies.The purpose of science popularization texts is to publicize scientific knowledge and disseminate scientific information to the public.Therefore,different translation strategies should be adopted according to different translation purposes in order to ensure the effective transmission of information and realize the communicative intention.In order to accurately understand the content of the source text and realize the communicative function in the target text,the translator should first of all follow the fidelity rule while taking into consideration the reading habits of the target readers to make the translated version comprehensible to achieve the communication purpose.Guided by the three rules of the Skopos Theory,the translator discusses the translation strategies of the terminologies,long sentences,titles and rhetoric,so as to improve the readability of the target text and facilitate the information transmission of science popularization texts.The thesis falls into five parts.Chapter I introduces the background,overview and significance of project as well as the structure of the report.Chapter II is a brief account of the translation process which includes pre-translation,in-translation and post-translation revision.Chapter III justifies the suitability of the Skopos Theory as the guiding principle for the translation of science popularization texts.Chapter IV cites the exemplifications to verify the applicability of the Skopos Theory by exemplifying the translation of terminologies,long sentences,titles and rhetoric.Chapter V sums up the translation process and makes a conclusion while also pointing out the limitations and suggestions.