An analysis of translation strategies used in an international economics textbook

• Main Author: Wang, Xiaoqing
• Other Authors: Cui Feng
• Format: Thesis-Master by Coursework
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2020
• Subjects: Humanities::Language
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/138564
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The translation of textbooks has experienced a long history in China with the introduction of foreign books, but there is scarce research in the study of economics textbook translation. This study set out to examine the translation theories and translation strategies using the International Economics textbook written by Thomas A. Pugel. The translation in this dissertation categorized the source text as an informative text on the strength of Reiss’s text type. To further look into the particular analysis of translation, Nida’s dynamic equivalence was employed to study the relationship between receivers and information should be the same as that of the receptors in the source language. More specific discussion examined translation techniques such as cutting, amplification, omission, conversion and annotation, in order to meet the objectives of translation based on the translation theories from English to Chinese. This research was conducted with a qualitative method. The result is that there were no steadfast translation strategies in the economics textbook. There was a variety of translation approaches in the analysis of the two languages in order to meet the equivalent meaning from the source text to the target text. Apart from the translation strategies, some translation challenges have surfaced during translation to influence the expression of the target language. With regards to the translation challenges, some problems are encountered in the process of translation using terminology translation, the context of the two languages and simplification in the target text. The paper also explains how to overcome the difficulties in the translation of the economics textbook to achieve a suitable version from an educational perspective for Chinese students, in combination with the western translation theories and translation techniques.