A Report On The E-C Translation Of The Root (Except)

The purpose of the English translation of novels,is to make readers explicitly grasp the characters,plots,and historical background in the original version.To achieve this goal,the translators should profoundly research the differences between the ways of expression of the source and target languages,seek common ground while reserve differences,and make the translation better accepted by readers based on the faithfulness to the original version.This translation report takes the example of the English historical novel The Root,of American writer Alex Haley,follows the functional equivalence theory of American linguist Eugene Nida,and explores the specific methods and strategies of English translation of historical novels.Functional equivalence theory points that translation and original text should achieve dynamic equivalence on the vocabulary,syntax,and text scale,which refers to information equivalence.Therefore,the translators should reasonably unite literary translation with free translation,and domestication with foreignization,to avoid the information loss.At the lexical level,Chinese words are comparatively abstract,while English words are comparatively concrete.Some Chinese words have broad sense,while some English words have comparatively narrow sense.Some Chinese and English words have nothing in common.The complete equivalence mainly exist in special technical terms.Though Chinese words and English words are not completely equivalent,the translators could apply different language forms to express the same meaning,like domestication and foreignization.At syntactic level,the syntactic equivalence is more complex than lexical equivalence.There are differences in gender,number and case of nouns,and varieties in time and tense of verbs.The English attributes are often postpositive,and clauses are common.Chinese sentences are comparatively short,and there is no obvious languages marks in gender,number,case,time and tense.Therefore,the translators should reconstruct the syntactic structures when it is necessary,to achieve the equivalence of meanings.Moreover,the usage frequency and inherence of the structure should also be taken into consideration.At the textual level,the translators should break the shackles of static analysis in traditional translation theory,and dynamically analyse the meanings and functions of the original texts in special contexts.To be more concrete,there are three aspects in context,situation and cultural background.The translators should view broadly and take concisely,analyse the context,situation and cultural background of the original texts,and transfer them to the readers.