A Report On The E-C Translation Of Too Bright To See (Excerpt) Under The Guidance Of Newmark’s Text Typology

As we all know,children’s literature plays a pivotal role in the healthy growth of children.As the country’s economic level and international status continue to improve,Chinese children are gradually exposed to many classic foreign children’s literatures.In 2022,Too Bright to See was awarded the silver medal of the Newbery Medal,written by Kyle Lukoff.The book has a novel plot with a new perspective,grabbing the reader’s attention.Unfortunately,the book has not been released in Chinese,and few translations of chapters or fragments have been made.Therefore,the translator uses this book as the source text for this translation practice.Previously,translators found that domestic research on children’s literature seldom drew on Text Typology Theory.The translator analyzed the types and characteristics of the source text and found that Newmark’s Text Typology Theory is a good guide for this material.Peter Newmark’s Text Typology Theory classified different texts into three types: expressive text,vocative text and informative text.Newmark summarized two translation strategies based on various texts: semantic and communicative translation.Semantic translation focuses on the semantic content of the source text and requires the translation to be close to the form of the original text.In contrast,communicative translation emphasizes the effect of information transmission and focuses on the understanding and reaction of the receiver.Newmark pointed out that semantic translation applies expressive texts,and communicative translation is applicable to informative and vocative texts.The translator summarized the translation methods to solve the difficulties in the practice,such as choice of word meaning,addition,omission,conversion of part of speech at the lexical level;division,inversion,and conversion of the voices at the syntactic level;and lexical cohesion and discourse coherence at the discourse level.Under the guidance of this theory,the translator can better solve certain problems in translation of children’s literature,accurately conveying the meaning and style of the source text and taking into account the reading experience of the target language readers.