A Translation Report On The Chinese-English Translation Of The Beginning Of Chinese Modern Fictions(Chapter Seven)

The Beginning of Chinese Modern Fictions is a book written by Chen Pingyuan.Based on Chinese literature in the 20th century,this book takes the collision between Chinese and western cultures and the stimulation and enlightenment of foreign novels as the cultural background of the generation and development of Chinese novels in the 20th century,and comprehensively investigates the evolution of Chinese novels from classicality to modernity.Selected as the source text of this translation practice,Chapter Seven of the book discusses the evolution of novels from officialdom to love in the late Qing dynasty.Through the transformation of the four contradictions of "loyal and treacherous opposition","official and civilian opposition","ruthless love" and "love triangle",readers can understand the transmutation of the new novelists’ view of politics,culture,ethics and love.On the whole,the original text is an academic work in the field of fiction literature,characterized by professionalism,formality and objectivity,etc.In the translation of such works,the accuracy of the target language and the consistency with the style of the source language should be well grasped.From a partial point of view,the author of the original text has great literary skills,and has cited a large number of novels and classical Chinese to prove his point of view,which leads to the need to pay more attention to the translation of novel titles and classical Chinese.Combining with the specific analysis of the original text,the translator selects the theory of Newmark’s communicative and semantic translation to guide the translation practice.According to the text typology,the source text is mainly informative with some expressive parts.Communicative translation is often used in the translation of informative texts,while semantic translation is often used in the expressive texts.The translation practice is mainly based on communicative translation and supplemented by semantic translation.The translator has encountered many difficulties in the practical translation,and this paper attempts to analyze the problems from the perspectives of language and culture.In terms of the linguistic level,the aspects of vocabulary,syntax and discourse are expounded,while the cultural level is elaborated from the three aspects of material,institutional and spiritual culture.Therefore,the translator can flexibly apply communicative and semantic translation and adopt specific translation methods to solve translation problems encountered in the process of translation.Through this translation practice,the translator’s abilities have been greatly improved,including the understanding of modern novel knowledge and the linguistic and cultural differences between China and the west,the cognition and application of translation theories,translation methods,translation skills,translation strategies and cultural theories,as well as the improvement of bilingual conversion ability.