This book, adopting the perspective of cross-cultural communication, theoretically justifies and addresses human variational translation practice for the first time in the area of translation studies, focusing on the adaptation techniques and variational translation methods, as well as general features and laws of the variational translation process. It classifies and summarizes seven main adaptation techniques and eleven translation methods applicable to all variational translation activities. These techniques and methods, quite different from those used in complete translation or full translation, are systematically studied together with examples, allowing readers to not only understand their interrelations and differences within the context of variational translation methods, but also to master them in order to improve their translation efficacy and efficiency. Readers will gain a better understanding of how variational translation is produced, and of its important role in advancing cross-cultural communication and in reconstructing human knowledge and culture. This book is intended for translation scholars, translation practitioners, students, and others whose work involves the theory and practice of translation and who want to enhance their translation proficiency in cross-cultural communication for the Information Age.

From its origins in the minimization of integral functionals, the notion of variations has evolved greatly in connection with applications in optimization, equilibrium, and control. This book develops a unified framework and provides a detailed exposition of variational geometry and subdifferential calculus in their current forms beyond classical and convex analysis. Also covered are set-convergence, set-valued mappings, epi-convergence, duality, and normal integrands.

Originally published in 1991 Redefining Translation looks at the practical results and theory of translation as a key area for all those investigating language and culture. The book addresses the need to consolidate advances in the field of translation and critically evaluate the variety of conflicting approaches. The book proposes a comprehensive approach to the study of translation, looking at the topic from a theoretical point of view, and provides an applicable approach to the everyday practice of translation.

Thereareabout500booksonvariationalprinciples. Theyareconcernedmostlywith the mathematical aspects of the topic. The major goal of this book is to discuss the physical origin of the variational principles and the intrinsic interrelations between them. For example, the Gibbs principles appear not as the rst principles of the theory of thermodynamic equilibrium but as a consequence of the Einstein formula for thermodynamic uctuations. The mathematical issues are considered as long as they shed light on the physical outcomes and/or provide a useful technique for direct study of variational problems. Thebookisacompletelyrewrittenversionoftheauthor’smonographVariational Principles of Continuum Mechanics which appeared in Russian in 1983. I have been postponing the English translation because I wished to include the variational pr- ciples of irreversible processes in the new edition. Reaching an understanding of this subject took longer than I expected. In its nal form, this book covers all aspects of the story. The part concerned with irreversible processes is tiny, but it determines the accents put on all the results presented. The other new issues included in the book are: entropy of microstructure, variational principles of vortex line dynamics, va- ational principles and integration in functional spaces, some stochastic variational problems, variational principle for probability densities of local elds in composites with random structure, variational theory of turbulence; these topics have not been covered previously in monographic literature.

In the late 1970s a new academic discipline was born: Translation Studies. We could not read literature in translation, it was argued, without asking ourselves if linguistic and cultural phenomena really were 'translatable' and exploring in some depth the concept of 'equivalence'. When Susan Bassnett's Translation Studies appeared in the New Accents series, it quickly became the essential introduction to this new subject. Susan Bassnett tackles the crucial problems of translation and offers a history of translation theory, beginning with the ancient Romans and encompassing key twentieth-century structuralist work. She then explores specific problems of literary translation through a close, practical analysis of texts, and completes her book with extensive suggestions for further reading. Twenty years after publication, the field of translation studies continues to grow. Updated for the second time, Susan Bassnett's Translation Studies remains essential reading for anyone new to the field.

Drawing from more than two hundred examples representing twenty-two languages of wide genetic and typological variety, the author guides the reader through a broad collection of situations encountered in the analysis and practice of translation. This enterprise gains structure and rigor from the methods and findings of contemporary linguistic theory, while realism and relevance are served by the choice of "naturalistic" examples from published translations. Coverage draws from a variety of genres and text-types (literary works, the Bible, newspaper articles, legal and philosophical writings, for examples), and addresses a thorough selection of structural-functional aspects. These range from discrepancies between source and target languages in sentence construction, to dfiferences between source and target poetic traditions with respect to meter and rhyme.