The Chinese Translation Of Metaphors In English Academic Texts

This translation report is based on the English-Chinese translation practice of Chapters 2 to 3 of the psychology monograph Deep Learning in a Disorienting World.The book is about deep learning,focusing on the reasons and influences of deep learning as well as the cultivation of thinking and competencies required for deep learning.The book involves developmental psychology,social psychology,experimental psychology,personality psychology,and other disciplines.It is a typical academic text with a variety of knowledge,rigorous wording,clear views,and sound logic.The text is highly academic,so the author employs abundant metaphors to help readers understand the terminology in this book.Metaphor is not only a common way of expression in daily life,but also a tool for our understanding and cognition of the world.Due to the large differences between Chinese and English,metaphorical translation has become one of the important issues to be effectively addressed in translation activities between the two languages.Therefore,this report centers on conceptual metaphors,takes into account the characteristics of academic texts,focuses on the English-Chinese translation process of structural metaphors,orientational metaphors and ontological metaphors involved in the original text,and finally summarizes the corresponding solutions.Given the rich and diverse variety of metaphors involved in the original text and the large cultural differences between English and Chinese,the translator should be clear about the author’s writing intention,accurately convey the original information,and strive to reproduce the images in metaphors,so as to ensure the precision of the translation and meet the target readers’ needs.Therefore,the translator flexibly applies translation methods such as literal translation,free translation,and idiomatic translation,and at the same time employs translation skills,including shift,omission,and addition,striving to preserve the figurative characteristics of metaphors in the original text to the greatest extent while ensuring that the translation is natural and fluent and accords with Chinese expression norms.In the process of writing this translation report,the translator has gained a deeper understanding and appreciation of conceptual metaphors and their classification,and at the same time,the translator’s translation competence and cultural competence have also been consolidated and improved.It is hoped that this translation practice report can provide some practical suggestions for the English-Chinese translation of metaphors in academic texts.