A Report On The English-Chinese Translation Of Jerry Of The Islands(Excerpts)

The material of this translation practice report is selected from the fourth to eighth chapters of the adventure novel Jerry of the Islands,written by the American writer Jack London in 1917.This book tells the story of sailing on the sea from the perspective of Jerry,a hound who is adventurous at sea.The novel tells the story of Jerry’s narrow escape with the captain during his voyage at sea.It is compact,rigorous and full of tension,and its content is extensive and contemporary.This practical report is based on Peter Newmark’s communicative translation theory.Communicative translation theory takes into account the reader’s understanding of the work and spiritual communication,in order to achieve the same effect for the readers of the target text and the source text on the basis of the original.It holds that the translator uses a number of translation strategies at the lexical,syntactic and textual levels to solve various translation problems that arise during the translation process.Firstly,at the lexical level,the translator mainly adopts translation methods such as conversion,increasing or decreasing words,making the text more relevant to the reading habits of the readers of target text;Secondly,at the syntactic level,the translator adopts the translation methods of decoupling,sequential and reverse,and the quality of the translation is improved according to the linguistic characteristics of hypotaxis and parataxis in both Chinese and English;At the textual level,the translator determines the vocabulary based on the context,tries to reproduce the characteristics of the characters as much as possible,and achieves the goal of making the translation authentic and easy to understand by changing perspectives.Through this translation practice and the study of relevant translation theories,the translator has not only strengthened the understanding of adventure novels,but also mastered more knowledges about communicative translation theory.The translator has made a summary and induction and put forward corresponding solutions to address the translation difficulties in translation practice,hoping that this report can provide some reference for translators in related fields.