A Report On The Translation Of Elmer Gantry

The first part of this paper is the translation of Chapters19-20of Elmer Gantry, afterwhich is the translation report. The author, Sinclair Lewis, is the first writer who won NobelPrize in Literature. Elmer Gantry is a satirical novel written by Sinclair Lewis in1926, whichmainly satirized the religious activities in American evangelization circle at that time. Thelanguage of the work is very vivid, which makes the figure character more distinct, but alsoincreases difficulties for translation. In the translation report, the author first illustrates thetask generally, then summerizes the translation process. Next, the author discusses somedifficulties met during translating, which includes the translation of colloquialism, propernouns and poems quoted. For the translation of colloquialism, the author mainly usesFunctional Equivalence Theory, that is, not to make excessive demands on the equivalence ofword and word or that of form, but focuses on reaching the equivalent effect. For thetranslation of most proper nouns, the author looks up in the Translation Mannul supplied bythe Press; for those can’t be found in the Mannul, the author mainly tries transliteration andliteral translation, in order to assure the accuracy and coincidence. The translation of poemsquoted is also a major difficulty. The author chooses the most proper translation after a lot ofsearch, analysis and compare. Besides, the author uses many examples to illustrate thesedifficulties more vividly and specificly. In the fourth part, the author talks about theexperiences: first, translation is influenced by many factors, such as the translator, the socialfactors and so on; second, a good translator should enrich himself/herself and do manypractices at daily time. At last, the author makes a conclusion.