A Report On The Translation Of Dreaming Spies(Excerpts)

Dreaming Spies is a detective novel of American author Laurie R.King.As a New York Times bestselling author,she is renowned for the Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes stories,which are a literature adaptation of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle.Thirteenth in the Mary Russell series,Dreaming Spies highlights the adventures of detective couple Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes.This report is based on the English to Chinese translation of Chapter Three to Chapter Six of Dreaming Spies,altogether12286 English words.During the translation process,the author of this report has found the main difficulties in translation lie in understanding the source text,expression and maintaining the style of the source text.While in this report,with the focus on how to maintain the style of the original text,the author has studied and summarized the two distinct linguistic characteristics of the novel: on one hand,this novel’s language is relaxed and humorous as a whole;on the other hand,each chapter of this novel begins with a classical Japanese short poem,which is consistent in format and beautiful in sense.Based on the two different styles mentioned above,the author has adopted different translation strategies: in order to restore the colloquial style in the target text,the author mainly employed some translation techniques such as omission,division and transformation,and replacing with vernacular;as for the classical style of haiku,the author has applied Xu Yuanchong’s“Triple Beauty” theory to guide the translation of haiku,so as to convey the original meaning of the source text first,and then achieve an integration of the message beauty,sound and form in the translated poetry.The author of this report believes that the translation practice is of great significance.It can meet the rising demands for detective novels from Chinese readers,as well as provide a model for creation of detective fiction in China.Besides,this report can serve as a reference for future translation of works of similar topics.Meanwhile,it will definitely improve the translator’s ability in translating similar literary works.Relatively awkward as the translation remains,the author does hope that it can help detective fiction draw enough attention,and furthermore,inspire more translator’s enthusiasm in translating and studying detective novels.