A Translation Project Report On A Long Way From Home(Chapter Ⅰ)

This paper is a practice report on the translation of A Long Way from Home written by Peter Carey.The novel explores racial issues in Australian society and the historical trauma of Australia’s Indigenous "Stolen Generation",and is an attempt by Peter Carey to construct an Australian national identity.Set against the backdrop of the Redex,the novel depicts the quest for freedom and identity of people of different generations.The language of the novel is light-hearted yet serious,with comic and satirical undertones.The novel is a popular fiction and has an engaging plot.To enhance the readability of the novel,the author finally chose semantic translation and communicative translation theory as a guide.In this report,the author discussed how to solve the translation problems arising from the lack of background knowledge and the translation of proper nouns and culturally loaded words in the translation process.Firstly,the author checked the relevant background knowledge of Australia and understood the writing style of the original author;secondly,the author used semantic translation and communicative translation theories as a guide to translate the selected text.Because of the differences between English and Chinese,the author analyzed and discussed the selected text from three aspects in the case analysis: lexical level,syntactic level and text level.Through this translation practice,the author deeply appreciates the importance of semantic translation and communicative translation in guiding the novel.By using the semantic translation theory,the translation is closer to the original text and promotes the output of the source language and culture;while using the communicative translation theory,the translation is more fluent and closer to the culture of the target readers,which makes the translation more readable.Through this translation project,the author deeply appreciates the difficulties in the application process of the theory.For countries with different language backgrounds and cultures,it is difficult to achieve faithfulness to the original text and the requirements of communicative translation.In this translation report,the author also understands the charm of translation and the importance of a translator.