Text Analysis of English to Chinese Translation of American History: a Case Study of Don't Know Much about American History

• Main Authors: Tsai Chi Tung, 蔡濟同
• Other Authors: Lee Gong Way
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/ee5446

碩士 === 長榮大學 === 翻譯學系碩士班 === 98 === The history of the United States of America plays an important role in the modern world. There are numerous books, translated works included, introducing American history. The author translated into Chinese some chapters in Kenneth C. Davis’s Don’t Know Much about American History, and discussed the translation practices after reading many sources related to American history. This thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter illustrates the motives and purposes of the author and presents the methodology the author used for writing the thesis. The second chapter introduces the books related to American history, and selects seven translated works, gives an overview of these seven works, and points out the characteristics of these seven books and their translation problems. Chapter three adopts the translation strategies—appropriate domestication and appropriate foreignization—to examine the author’s translation. Chapter four focuses on the translation of terminology. Understanding that terms are the most basic unit in all kinds of texts, the author analyzes the problems of terminology translation existing in the translated works of American history, and then examines the translation problems of Don’t Know Much about American History. The last chapter summarizes and concludes this thesis. The author hopes this thesis and the related research materials will be helpful for those who are interested in translating American history and in written translation as a whole.