A Report On The E-C Translation Of Killer Research (Excerpt) From The Perspective Of Communicative Translation

The source text of this report is Chapter 1 to Chapter 3 of Killer Research,a mystery fiction authored by American writer Jenn Mckinlay.This fiction mainly tells a series of stories caused by the unexpected discovery of a man’s body in the trunk of Ms.Cole,the candidate for the next mayor.The author portrays lots of characters with distinctive character traits and expects to attract readers with dramatic plots.During translation,the translator mainly encounters the following difficulties.Firstly,how to grasp the accurate meanings of words without being affected by linguistic and cultural differences between Chinese and English.Secondly,how to clearly translate long sentences and realize the cohesion of several short sentences.Finally,how to convey rich emotions of characters in dialogues and avoid repeated use of pronouns in dialogues.After analyzing the fiction’s features and translation difficulties,the translator works on the translation practice from the perspective of Peter Newmark’s communicative translation theory.This theory emphasizes a close effect produced on target readers as that produced on original readers instead of sticking to the original form rigidly,having a great guiding value in rendering Killer Research.Analyzing cases from lexical,syntactic and discourse levels,the translator flexibly adopts amplification,combination,division,and some other strategies during translation.Therefore,this translation practice mainly focuses on target readers and communicative effect of translation.The analysis in this report suggests that communicative translation theory is of positive significance in translating Killer Research.With this theory,the translator can vividly present the story in fiction and improve the quality of translation,thus allowing better a reading experience to target readers.