本文是一篇英语论文，本报告基于英国历史学家Greg Woolf所著的《罗马：一个帝国的故事》（节选），该书从多个维度描述了罗马的变迁。译者选取本书的前两章作为翻译实践的素材，这两章主要介绍罗马历史的概述以及罗马在思想层面的影响。
1 Task Description
1.1 Background of the Task
Rome:An Empire’s Story was first published by Oxford University Press in 2012,and in 2022,the second edition was published,with more new research findings added inby the author.The translation task is based on the second edition.The author of the book,Greg Woolf,discusses the vicissitudes of Rome and the reason behind them based on thecutting-edge studies of scholars.Greg Woolf is a British ancient historian,archaeologistand academic,specializing in the late Iron Age and the Roman Empire.He has worked onformation of the provincial cultures,often using archaeological materials,and also on thecosmopolitan cultures of the metropolis.Much of his work considers the Roman worldfrom a global perspective.
Rome is an important entity in western history,even in world history.The empire,started from a city,strengthened itself gradually,and became a vast empire surroundingthe Mediterranean,which lasted over a thousand years and significantly influenced thesocial formation of Europe.Under the background of globalization nowadays,knowingthe history of other nations is of benefit to us,and the history of Rome,as a significant one,is worth knowing and popularizing,in this way,a book telling Rome’s history isworth translating.
1.2 Choice of the Text
The text is chosen both for its practical and academical significance.The practicalreason of choosing this book includes three factors:First,as is discussed before,thehistory of Rome is worth knowing and popularizing;Second,the author of the book is apremium expert in Rome history and has his unique perspective to introduce Rome;Third,the book,written by a historian with his expertise,is a good one for readers to knowabout Rome as well as its long-lasting impact,so as to understand important aspects ofwestern culture and society.The academical significance of the task lies in the greatamount of implicit information the text contains,which can be classified and translatedunder the guidance of explicitation theory,and thus can bring some help to the translationof historical text with much implicit information.
2 Process Description
2.1 Preparation before Translation
For the translation of the first two chapters of Rome:An Empire’s Story,threeparticipants were involved.One was the translator himself,who was responsible fortranslating the text,and two of his classmates were for proofreading.
Before translation,the translator searched the National Digital Library of Chinaand other websites at home and abroad,finding that there was no Chinese version ofRome:An Empire’s Story by the time when the book was chosen.Then,the translatorroughly read the whole book and thought that the book was within his means.Beforesetting out to translate,the translator searched the Internet to find out more about theauthor of the book and read the preface in depth to grasp the book’s content.To betterunderstand the historical background and related information in the text,as well as graspthe style of target text,the translator read some materials about Rome history both inEnglish and Chinese.
To finish the translation task in an orderly way and produce high-quality outputwithin time limitation,the translator made a schedule of finishing the translation,which covered the whole task process.
2.2 Process of Translation
Process of translation took the longest time in the whole translation task,duringwhich the translator should not only try to transcribe the words into Chinese,but also dealwith the cultural and history related expression.
In producing the first edition of translation,the translator used“Trados”tofacilitate translating.With the help of this tool,the whole text was divided into manysegments by sentences,each of which could be marked as“translated”or“untranslated”. Therefore,the translator could conveniently check the sentences to avoid ignoringcontents.Besides,with the h
