Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Background
Nowadays, the cultural exchanges between China and western countries have been increasingly deepened, covering fields such as literature, education, philosophy, law, music, and fashion. In addition, academic exchanges should not be ignored. Both at home and abroad, a large number of academic works in different fields have been translated and introduced, which realizes good communication between Chinese and western academic concepts. Among them, due to the current deterioration of the global environment, the awareness of environmental crisis has become the focus of international discussions, which makes environmental criticism an increasingly emerging research direction. As an important scholar in this field, Rob Nixon has created a large number of academic works related to environmental criticism which granted him international recognition. Besides, his work, named Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, has received considerable attention in the field of environmental criticism. Hence, the author chooses this academic work as this translation task.
Although many academic works have been translated and introduced in China, there are still relatively few studies on the translation of academic works. Approximately 145 articles focusing on this field can be found in CNKI. In this translation practice, the author encounters many difficulties in translating academic works. On the lexical level, difficulties mainly focus on the translation of polysemous words and terminologies, while on the sentence level the translations of parentheses and long and complicated sentences are the two main difficulties. Although domestic scholars have studied the translation of terminologies and long and complicated sentences in academic works, the number of studies is small and some existing difficulties in this practice have not been exhaustively studied before. Therefore, on the basis of translation practice, the author writes this report for rethinking.
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1.2 Significance
As an important scholar in the field of environmental criticism, the book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor written by Rob Nixon is very influential abroad. In the English official website of The Los Angeles Review of Books, the author finds a book review written in 2013, named “The Varieties of Environmental Violence”. Subhankar Banerjee, the author of this book review, writes his comments on Rob Nixon's book that “Nixon’s Slow Violence is the first book in environmental literary studies to explore the connection between natural resource extraction and petro-imperialism.” However, even if Nixon enjoys great fame abroad, in China only Li Cheng (2018) once translated Rob Nixon’s academic paper which is “Environmentalism and Post-colonialism”. Chen Shengmei also points out that the introduction and translation of academic works can “give the great significance to many aspects of human life, like politics, law and exchange among thoughts and cultures, even the transformation of social life. It is an important way to transform world academic essence into China’s spiritual wealth.” (2011: 152) As a result, not only can this translation practice introduce the excellent academic works of Rob Nixon into China, but also provide reference translation for domestic scholars in this field.
In this translation practice, the author finds it difficult to translate academic work and encounters many problems. As an important academic work in the field of environmental criticism, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor contains a lot of professional content, including many environmental terminologies, interdisciplinary knowledge, and a large number of long and complicated sentences, which causes great difficulties in understanding the source text. In the process of translating terminologies, in order to understand the connotations of terms, the author has to search and read many related articles. However, in some circumstances, it is still hard to get an appropriate translation, even if the connotation is clear.
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Chapter 2 Description of Translation Task
2.1 Introduction of the Text
In this section, the author will introduce this translation material and the writer of Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor.
This translation material is selected from Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor which is an important academic work in the field of eco-criticism. In this translation practice, the author chooses the first and second chapter of this academic work as translation material, with a total number of words of 20,649. Chapter I, entitled Slow Violence, Neoliberalism, and the Environmental Picaresque, is divided into six parts which are Slow Violence, Chernobyl, and Environmental Time; Foreign Burdens: Chernobyl, Bhopal, and Animal’s People; The Environmental Picaresque, Abjection, and the Urban Poor; Terror Time and Shadow Kingdoms; Sinha and Carson: Leakages and Corporate Evaporations; Extraordinary Events, Ordinary Forgettings. In these six sections, Rob Nixon introduces information to readers about what slow violence is and which disasters it causes under neoliberalism. This part also includes content about the background of emerging environmental picaresque and the impact of slow violence on literature creation and the lives of the poor (2011: 45-67). Chapter II, entitled Fast-forward Fossil Petro-despotism and the Resource Curse, also has six parts, namely Abdelrahman Munif and the Oil Encounter; Writing and Political Agency; The Oasis as Resource Frontier; Provincializing America: Wilderness and the Frontiers of Genre; Orality, Geology, and Writing: The Technologies of Encounter; The Future Eaters and the Fuel-Fed Fire. This section also introduces information to readers from these six perspectives. Rob Nixon presents content which includes the emergence of oil tyranny and resource curse casted on local residents by oil tyranny. In this part, Rob Nixon uses Munif’s novel, City of Salt, to explain the consequences of the resource curse (2011: 68-102).
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2.2 Source-Text Analysis
In this section, the author takes advantage of Nord’s translation-oriented text analysis model to analyze this source text from extratextual factors and intratextual factors. On the basis of source-text analysis, the author summarizes the linguistic features of the source text, which can provide reference for the author to analyze the difficulties and key points in the translation of the source text. The author divides this section into two parts. One is the introduction of Nord's translation-oriented text analysis model, and the other is the text analysis of Rob Nixon's academic work.
2.2.1 Nord's Translation-Oriented Text Analysis Model
Christiane Nord's translation-oriented text analysis model falls into the category of functionalist translation theory, as Christiane Nord (2006: 5-132) states in her book, whose name is Text Analysis in Translation: Theory, Methodology, and Didactic Application of a Model for Translation-Oriented Text Analysis, that “my concept of translation is basically functional.” (ibid.: 5) On the basis of previous scholars’ studies, Christiane Nord puts forward translation-oriented text analysis model. In this theory work, Nord clearly stresses the principle of “functionality plus loyalty” in the process of translation. Under this translation principle, she thinks that, in order to achieve functionality, a translator should make sure the target text realizes the expected function of the source text. Besides, “the translator is committed bilaterally to the source next as well as to the target-text situation, and is responsible to both the ST sender (or the initiation if s/he is also the sender) and the TT receiver.” (ibid.: 32) Nord thinks that this responsibility is loyalty. In the view of Nord, the translation process is a looping model (See Figure 2-1). Among these four parts of the translation process, the analysis of source text is the most important step where a translator analyzes the source text from two aspects: extratextual factors and intratextual factors. In her book, Christiane Nord also explains each factor in detail.
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Chapter 3 Process Description .................................... 18
3.1 Translation Schedule and Translation Tools ................ 18
3.2 Translation Process and Quality Control ................... 18
Chapter 4 Case Study ............................. 20
4.1 Translation Difficulties on Lexical Level ............................... 20
4.1.1 Unfamiliar Usages of Familiar Words .............................. 20
4.1.2 Terminologies ............................. 25
Chapter 5 Conclusion ................................. 42
Chapter 4 Case Study
4.1 Translation Difficulties on Lexical Level
On lexical level, besides the difficulty of terminology translation in this translation text, the author finds that it is challenging to deal with the translation of polysemous words as well. In this academic work, Rob Nixon prefers to use polysemous words which cause the translation difficulty due to the unfamiliar usage of familiar words. This difficulty requires the author’s attention. In the following part, the author will analyze translation strategies with examples.
4.1.1 Unfamiliar Usages of Familiar Words
4.1.1.1 Features of Unfamiliar Usages of Familiar Words
No matter in Chinese or English, there are a large number of polysemous words. Therefore, in the process of translating, translators have to pay attention to the connotation of each word used in the source text and select the appropriate translation. Otherwise, there will be many problems in the translation, among which the unfamiliar usage of familiar words is one of them. Just as its name implies, unfamiliar usage of familiar words refers to the instances when a familiar word expresses unfamiliar or even obscure meaning in a certain context. Translators should distinguish unfamiliar meaning from extended meaning. Unfamiliar meaning can be exactly found in the dictionary, while extended meaning cannot.
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Chapter 5 Conclusion
reference(omitted)