A Report On The Translation Of The Black Death (Chapters Fifteen To Seventeen)

This translation report is based on the E-C translation of Chapters 15-17 of The Black Death.The three chapters cover the social and economic effects of the Black Death,its effects on education,agriculture and architecture,as well as its effects on the church and people’s thinking.Under the guidance of Skopos Theory,in-depth analyses of various issues that arise during translation are conducted and solutions are proposed in accordance with the three principles.The report’s translation problems are divided into three categories: word misunderstanding,Europeanized expressions,and long sentences.The following techniques are employed to address these issues.First and foremost,the translator thoroughly understands the relevant historical background knowledge from online and offline resources;she also carefully considers the context and fully understands the precise meaning of the original text to avoid polysemy-related ambiguity.This is aimed at avoiding misunderstanding of words.Then,to make the translated text more palatable to its Chinese readers,the use of Europeanized expressions is reduced by using techniques like division,omission,parallelism,and negation.Finally,techniques like inversion and division are used to break up the lengthy sentences into smaller,more understandable chunks.The translation practice provides Chinese historical material for Chinese historians to conduct research on the Black Death and its effects.Other translators can use the report as a resource to address issues that frequently arise when translating historical texts.