A Report On The E-C Translation Of X(Excerpts)under The Guidance Of Communicative Translation

This translation is excerpted from the 24th story X of the "Alphabet Series" by Sue Grafton,an American best-selling author of detective fiction.The story uses a large number of descriptions to shape characters,create atmospheres,and promote the plots,which is of literary and aesthetic value.The main clue of the story focuses on the investigation of a flawless serial killer by a female detective.At present,no authoritative translation has been published.Therefore,the excerpt translation is provided for reference.According to Peter Newmark’s Text Typology,Xbelongs to popular literature,which should focus on the communicative translation method.Besides,the description of the source text also contains informative function.Informative text mainly conveys objective information that is based on facts,whose content is more important than form,and the vocative text emphasizes the effect of communication and the response from readers.Therefore,based on the Communicative Translation which is reader-oriented,this report intends to analyze the descriptions of characters and environments in the excerpts at lexical,syntactic,and discourse levels,and to put forward some translation strategies for reference.In the process of translation,the translator finds it difficult to translate some words and sentences if the structures of the source text are strictly abided by,which has a bad impact on the aesthetic effect.Therefore,taking into account the readability of the translation and the acceptance of the readers,the translator uses flexibly the translation methods of words,such as interpretation,substitution,and extension,and translation methods of sentences including addition,omission,division,and recombination,to discuss the way to reproduce the character,convey the information and spirit of the source text,and to take care of the readers’ reading experience and aesthetic feeling.From this translation,the translator summarizes the translation strategies and advantages under the guidance of Communicative Translation.In this way,her translation ability of novels has improved.However,the theory also has some limitations.There might be contradictions between the information transmission and communication effects,and sometimes it is hard to choose appropriate translation strategies.As a consequence,there are still weaknesses in the translation.