本文是文学论文，The first point is that the closest natural equivalence of the source language isobviously not only the closeness of meaning, but also the translators’ presentation ofthe message which the writer intends to convey to the readers.The second point is to expand the scope of knowledge. In the process oftranslation, the ability of analyzing and solving problems, bilingual ability, extensiveknowledge, and mastery of translation theories are the main challenges faced bytranslators.Landers says, “while translation doesn’t necessarily make perfect (itmakes permanent), the assumption is that with time hones techniques,,acquires confidence.” (Landers, 2008:16) Therefore, a qualified translator needscontinuous learning and translation practice, summarizing experience and expanding knowledge in practice.The third point is that the ability of information retrieval has been improvedsignificantly. In today’s era of resource sharing, many resources, whether useful ornot, occupy the memory of our brains, so it is very important to search for effectiveand urgently needed information. This ability complements my lack of background knowledge, improves the level of Chinese expression, and greatly increases theefficiency and accuracy of translation. “One excellent translation work is doubt creating a zone for source text to extend and lengthen its life.” What we need is to develop an unusual sensitivity resourceslanguage,theimportance of culture, and the art of translating. Through the training of thistranslation practice, I have a deeper understanding of this field.
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Chapter One Introduction
Both stories are selected from The New Yorker, an American magazine, whichoffers analysis on major International events, and plays a pioneering role inpolitics, literature, and art etc..The first story “The Intermediate Class” is about 6,908 words, which waspublished in the first issue of April in 2018 on The New Yorker. The second one is“Fungus”, 6,708 words, published in the second issue of June in 2018. Both storiesbelong to the genre of fiction, and there is no published translation yet.“The Intermediate Class” is the story of Kiril learning intermediate German.Kiril, like the rest ofhis class, is not young but has a strong love of German, while his German teacher puts too much energy into playing the piano rather than teaching. Inthe class, there are frictions and collisions between teachers and students, and alsomutual supervision and common progresses between students.The text is mainly composed of plain dialogues in the class and a large numberof psychological descriptions of the characters. In the process of translation, weshould payattention to the oral nature of the dialogues and grasp different languagecharacteristics of the characters, so as to achieve natural and appropriate equivalences.“Fungus” tells the story of Andrew and his younger daughter Willa. After losinghis wife and theeldest daughter, Andrew is distressed and unable to concentrate whenbuying the new car with his six-year-old daughter Willa, while Willa keeps her mindclear and makes the decision of buying the car for her father, which brings comfort tohim.The language of this short story is more colloquial with many professional termsabout cars. the focus should be put on the descriptions of the charactersand the expressions of objective things in the process of translation.
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Chapter Two Translation Process
2.1 Before the Translation Task
At the first step, group members discussed to choose translation materials, afterdiscussion, we chose to translate the stories on the magazine The New Yorker.Then group members downloaded fictions from January 2018 to June 2018 onThe New Yorker and selected what they were interested in.Moreover, group members searched for the authors’ background information,such as writing style, social and cultural background and so on.Lastly, group members began to translate 1000-word trial translation, later thesupervisor gave advice and suggestions for improvement.Meanwhile, relevant books and articles from the CNKI and Wikipedia are very necessary for translation, andtranslation theories have been searched and learnt, such as Nida’s functionalequivalence theory, Venuti’s domestication and foreignization.When there are differencesbetween the form and content in the target languageand the source language, Nida’s semantic equivalence can be adopted. “The translatormust strive for equivalence rather than identity.” (Nida,2004:12) That means atranslation need not be restricted to the form of the source text, but more attentionshould be paid to the content and semantic equivalence. The translation of emotionalexpression is priority, while the form is secondary.
2.2 During the Translation Task
The first step is to comprehend the text. Scanning and close reading are bothrequired at the very beginning of undertaking this project. A scan should be conductedto get the gist of the text and close reading to get a full comprehension of it.Secondly, a collection of proper nouns as well as terminologies and incomprehensible contents were looked up in the dictionaries.Thirdly, the finished translation should be reviewed by the group membersthemselves and then group members checked each others’ translation to find theincomprehensible and inaccurate parts to polish the translation.Lastly, the supervisor gave suggestions for improvement.Analysis: In this sentence, the formerclause indicates the result, and the latter oneis a conditional adverbial clause led by “if”. Westerners like to come straight to thepoint, which is to explain the attitude first, then talk about the conditions. Accordingto the Chinese logical thinking pattern, we tend to express our attitude in the end.Therefore, considering the thinking habits of Chinese readers, “if” conditionaladverbial clause should be placed at the beginning of the sentence, and the word orderof the target text should be adjusted, then the target language will be more readable,so as to avoid being restricted to the form proposed by Nida and reflect the expression of emotion and meaning.Analysis: After the semantic meaning of the sentence is clarified, the sentence isdivided into two sentences, and the word order of the target text is adjusted, then thelogic will be smoother, and the target text will be more readable. It will be in line withwhat Venuti states, “the domestication enacted by a fluent strategy is not seen asproducing an inaccurate translation.” (Venuti,2004:78)
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Chapter Three Translation Theory........ 5
3.1 The Development of Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory...........................5
3.2 Venuti’s Domestication and Foreignization................... 6
Chapter Four Case Analysis..................7
4.1 Lexical Equivalence....................7
4.2 Syntactic Equivalence................. 9
Chapter Five Conclusion.....................17
Chapter Five Conclusion.....................17
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Chapter Four Case Analysis
4.1 Lexical Equivalence
The meaning of a word lies in its usage in the language and finds itscorresponding meaning in the target language. During translation, the most importantthing is to make the receptor understand and appreciate the target text.As Nida states, the adequacy of translation has traditionally been judged on thebasiscorrespondence in lexicon and grammar between the source and targetlanguage. (Nida, 2001:86)We may come across some words which, if copied mechanically, may make our translation difficult to understand and unable to express the exact meaning of thesource text. According to Nida’s functional equivalence theory, the meaning of wordsin the source text is naturally and appropriately reflected in the target language.The meaning of a word is the basis for its extension. Due to the differences between Chinese and English, if a correspondent lexical meaning is likely to result inmisunderstanding, then translator must make some adjustments intothetranslation. Cliff E.Landers argues, “Even when the source text is in a dead language,the target language never remains static.” (Landers, 2008:11) In translation, translatormust not only get the source text meaning, but also create a new concept that thetarget language reader could accept.In Nida’s opinion, “the greater the differences between the source and targetlanguages, the greater the need for adjustments.” (Nida,2001:95) To make the targettext readers understand the source text, the word meaning needs to be extendedaccording to the semantic meaning.
4.2 Syntactic Equivalence
In translation, difference is the key point which translator must pay attention to,the translator must take an overall understanding to analyze the source text, find outthe initial logical relationship, after which he/she can get the accurate syntacticmeaning.“Equivalence cannot be understood in its mathematical meaning of identity,butonly in ofproximity, i.e on the basis of degrees of closeness to functionalidentity.” (Nida,2001:86) The translator must find out whether the structure exists inthe target language and how often it is used. Nida advocates that readers’ responseshould be taken as the criterion of translation judgment. As there are many differences between Chinese and English in grammatical structure, it must be decided that in theprocess of English-Chinese translation, the translator must take into account thethinking habits of Chinese readers, and appropriately adjust the word order of thetranslation, so that the translation can not only correctly express the meaning of thesource text, but also make it easy to understand.Both English and Chinese can express the same concept through affirmative ornegative expressions. But the history, geography, social cultural background inEnglish-spoken country is different from ours. Therefore, their thinking patternsgreatly differ from ours. And this kind of difference shows different languageexpressions.Analysis: The sentence consists of a simple sentence and a “without” phrase. If itwere translated by the original order, the meaning would appear obscure. The sourcetext format will be broken out after the meaning and internal structure of the sentenceare clarifieddomestication translation strategy is adopted. To be Chinese expression habit, the sentence is divided into two or more short sentences.Liu Miqing holds, “Through the surface of the source language, grasp the semanticstructure, we use different sentences to translate the same meaning sentence.” (Liu,2004:189) It enables readers to have a correct understanding of the source text andachieve functional equivalence between the source text and the target text in terms ofcontent.#p#分页标题#e#
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Chapter Five Conclusion
There are still some deficiencies existing. because there is noexisting relevant expression, words are only translated from the personal understanding,which may not reach the real equivalence between the source languageand the target language. Beyondthat,becausedifferentculturalbackground,some cultural information may not be found andtranslated correctly and completely.Much more time should be spent exploring the accuracy of the translated text,including the selection of the word meaning, the grammar structure of some long andcomplex sentences.The third point is that the ability of information retrieval has been improvedsignificantly. In today’s era of resource sharing, many resources, whether useful ornot, occupy the memory of our brains, it is important to search effectiveand urgently needed information. This ability complements my lack of backgroundknowledge, improves the level of Chinese expression, and greatly increases theefficiency and accuracy of translation. “One excellent translation work is no doubtcreating a zone for the source text to extend and lengthen its life.” (Xu Jun,2009:11)What we need is to develop an unusual sensitivity to the resources of language, theimportance of culture, and the art of translating. Through the training of thistranslation practice, the first step is to convey the correct meaning, and the second stepis to achieve equivalence in form. Nida’s functional equivalence theory focuses onform rather than stick to the form. He argues, “If a close, formal translation sosemantically and syntactically difficult that the average person for whom thetranslation is beingmade is very likely to give up trying to understand it, certainchanges are warranted.” (Nida,2001:93) In case that the original form cannot betterexpress the meaning or is easy to be misunderstood, the original meaning is reservedby adjusting the word order.
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