A Report On The E-C Translation Of A Family

This report is a case study on the E-C translation of the fifth story A Family from Jamel Brinkley`s story collection A Lucky Man(2018).A Family is a story between a middle-aged black man Curtis Smith and the Caldwell’s family in Brooklyn,New York.The story tells the complex emotional entanglements among characters and vividly reflects ideas of masculinity and the fumes of racism and injustice in the American society.The translation is under the guidance of Reception Aesthetics Theory that emphasizes the critical role of readers in literary works.Based on the three main concepts of Reception Aesthetics Theory,including Horizon of Expectations,Aesthetic Distance and Indeterminacy of the Text,the report discusses the translation strategies,methods and skills in terms of vocabulary,sentence and rhetoric to realize the critical role of readers in literary works.Under the guidance of Reception Aesthetics Theory,the translator tries to focus on the common readers at home.In words level,there are many culture-related words including culture-loaded words and proper nouns that convey much information of the source language culture.Thus,the translator mainly adopted the strategy of domestication to help the target readers achieve the fusion of horizon with the source text with the help of skills such as omission,annotation and so on.In sentences level,the original author reveals character features and their mutual relationships through concise and refine dialogues,leaving much room for readers to imagine.Thus,the translator,mainly using the method of free translation,created opportunities for the target readers themselves to comprehend the indeterminacy in dialogues with translation skills such as omission,amplification and so on.In this way,the target readers are inspired to keep reading.In rhetoric level,the original author adopted simile,metaphor and other rhetorical devices to heighten the atmosphere,reflects the inner world of characters and brought the feeling of beauty to readers.Considering the aesthetic distance between the target readers and the expressive form of the source text,the translator mainly used a combination of free translation and literal translationto reproduce such artistic style on the basis of conveying the idea of the source text.In conclusion,the rich actual examples occurring in this report indicate the feasibility and practicality of sticking to the critical role of readers,which is also proved to be applicable in guiding the translation of literary works.And the theory of Reception Aesthetics helps the translator to get the translated version as close as possible to the original piece and to enhance the acceptability of the translated text.