A Report On The E-C Translation Of The Five Wishes Of Mr. Murray McBride (Excerpts) Under The Guidance Of Domestication And Foreignization

The translation material for this report is selected from the novel The Five Wishes of Mr.Murray McBride by American writer Joe Siple,specifically from Chapter 28 to Chapter 36.The novel tells a story that a centenarian helps a young boy with a heart condition to fulfill his final five wishes.They race against time as well as find courage and hope in each other.The novel is characterized by its humorous and witty language,and its deeply moving storyline.The author has been guiding readers towards an optimistic outlook on life.Domestication and foreignization strategies are two different perspectives.Domestication primarily focuses on the target readers,with the translation emphasizing meeting the readers’ reading habits.On the other hand,foreignization emphasizes on retaining the unfamiliarity of the source text and preserving its original language characteristics.This report explores and analyzes the translation from three levels,including lexical level,syntactic level and textual level under the guidance of domestication and foreignization.At the lexical level,the translator explains baseball terminologies with annotation technique,which is more easily comprehensible for target readers based on appropriate strategy.Idioms and colloquial expressions are handled through translation technique of shift or literal translation,enhancing the readability of the translation.At the syntactic level,the translator supplements relevant sentence components,contributing to make a clearer and more coherent semantic expressions.Compound sentences are appropriately restructured into shorter sentences and adjusted word order,making the translation more fluent and natural.For sentences employing rhetorical devices,the translator employs foreignization strategy to retain their language characteristics,creating a more vivid and lively translation.At the textual level,the translator combines contextual background knowledge to infer the accurate meaning of the translation,maintaining coherence and consistency in the translated text.Guided by the strategies of domestication and foreignization,the translator has gained a deeper understanding of translating literary works.When it comes to proper nouns that appear in Western culture,the translator should strive for foreignization while maintaining the fluency and smoothness of the translated text,aiming to preserve linguistic characteristics and cultural connotations.For sentences lacking sentence components and some compound sentences,various translation techniques,such as inversion,shift and addition,can be employed to achieve the desired expression in the target language.I hope that my translation report provides valuable reference for translation practice through the strategies of domestication and foreignization.