Title: Semantic Translation and Communicative Translation:A Case Study in My Chinese Translation of Alnwick’s Inspired Heritage
Abstract: This essay deals with my Chinese translation of a tour brochure and highlights some issues in translation. The translation strategies semantic translation and communicative translation are famous approaches proposed by Peter Newmark in his book Approaches to Translation. He puts forward his text typology and categorizes all text types into three types, i.e. expressive text, informative text and vocative text. In order to solve problems emerging in different types, he presents two dominant translation approaches, namely, semantic translation and communicative translation (Newmark, 2001). These translation methods are regarded as a milestone in translation theory and highly quoted by many scholars. Semantic translation emphasizes the thinking process of the author and represents the origin meanings of the source text. In this case, translator makes little interference with the harmony of the source text. Semantic translation can preserve the characteristics and expression patterns of the source language, forcing readers to follow the thinking pattern of the author. While communicative translation indicates that the influence of translation on target readers should be identical to the effect of original article on source readers. Communicative translation is target-language-orientated and focuses on transference of information. This translation strategy allows translator to reorganize sentences with classical phrases in the target language to make his translation accessible to target readers. Of course, these different translation strategies often complement with each other, and should be combined together in translation.
Publication Year: 2013
Publication Date: 2013-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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