A Practice Report On The E-C Translation Of Light (Chapters Ⅴ-Ⅵ)

This report is based on the English-Chinese translation practice of Light(Chapters Ⅴ-Ⅵ),written by American writer Bruce Watson.The book is a popular science work,describing the history of understanding and using light in different fields.As a book for popularizing science,it’s scientific but literary in style.Within the framework of Tytler’s three principles of translation,the author analyzes and combs out the main problems encountered in translation practice in detail,and selects concrete and feasible translation methods and techniques at three levels of ideas,style,and ease.For the sake of the effect of the theory on the practice and logic and readability of the report,the typical examples from lexical,syntactic,and textual perspectives are selected and analyzed respectively.Specifically,at the ideas level,painting-specific terms are treated by data searching,free translation,and annotation;elliptical sentences are translated by amplification,repetition and free translation;rhetorical devices are handled by free translation and paraphrasing.At the style level,religion-related expressions are treated by free translation,paraphrasing,and annotation;quotations are translated by change of quote position and change of quote form;poetry excerpts are rendered by running rhyme and pauses.At the ease level,prepositional phrases are processed by structure conversion and part of speech conversion;to deal with sentences in passive voice,the translator reserves the passive structure of some sentences,and transforms others into active voice,and still others are changed into sentences without subjects;in order to find a more suitable and effective way to achieve the discourse cohesion and accuracy in the translated version,reiteration and omission are employed.In addition to the transcription of ideas and reproduction of the style,the target text reads almost as easy and smooth as the source text after the translator adopts the above strategies and skills.The practice has endowed the translator with some insights into the features and translation of popular science texts,which is hopefully to be tested and referred by herself and her peers.