A Report On The E-C Translation Of Father Henson's Story Of His Own Life

Father Henson's Story of His Own Life, is a literary work and an autobiography, written by American writer Josier Henson. This report will focus on the introduction, and the first six chapters(about ten thousand words in total). This work is his memoirs and describes the miserable life of his whole family. The work reveals the cruelty of American slavery system. By reading this work, we can feel the sufferings and the bitterness of his family as well as the black people in the 19 th century in America deeply. Therefore, the readers can feel the American culture of that time.This translation task is based on a literary work, which can fully show the cultural backgrounds and tradition. The main purpose of literature is to convey the inner meaning to readers. Therefore, when translating literary works, we should pay more attention to the functional equivalence(also known as dynamic equivalence). That is to say, the original text and target text should convey the same meaning to the readers and have the same function. This principle emphasizes the functional equivalence of information instead of the direct formal equivalence in translation so as to keep the meaning and style of the source language functionally equivalent to that of the target language as much as possible. Functional equivalence requires translators can fully and comprehensively understand and translate the meaning of the original text, so the readers can fully understand the American culture better.With the development of globalization, the exchanges and cultural communication between countries are more frequent. As an important part of culture, literature is an important means to understand and touch foreign culture. So the translated text should convey the inner meaning of the original and the purpose of the work. That is the “functional equivalence”, which means realizing the formal equivalence and the cultural equivalence. So the translator should follow the “functional equivalence” when translating.There are five parts: introduction, task description, process description, case analysis, summary & conclusion.In the introduction, the author presents the translation task, the guiding translation theory and the structure of the translation report. The first chapter briefly introduces the source of the translation task, the original text, as well as the significance of the translation project. The second chapter is about the translation process, including preparations before the translation, the forming of the first translation, the modification of the first translation and the forming of the second translation, and the polishing of the second translation and the forming of the final translation. In the third chapter the author points out the translation skills and methods she has applied in her translation process by analyzing some cases. The third chapter is the translation methods and skills analyzed by some typical cases. In the last chapter, the author summarizes her translation practice, pointing out the complexity of literary translation, the proper skills of literary translation and the qualifications of a competent translator.