Critical Comments On Faithfulness In Translating The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

In fiction translation, there is no doubt that translators should observe the principle of fidelity. That means translators need to pay more attention to the content, characteristics, psychological changes and emotions of the SL text to evoke the perceptual sympathetic response of the TL text readers. This thesis is based on the translation practice of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a book written by American writer, Stephen Chbosky. This full-length novel tells a story about a young freshman, Charlie, who suffers from many setbacks during his adolescence stage. Fortunately, with the help of his friends, Charlie finally confronts his failures, and finds hopes of life and warmth of his family once again. The words of this book are simple but reflect strong feelings, and all the characters’characteristics are so complicated. Those features of the novel make the translation practice become more difficult. It’s a big challenge for the translator to reproduce the original style, personality, and emotion of the book and offer the readers an excellent reading experience. To navigate through that challenge and make a faithful translation, the translator chooses the fidelity principle as the basic criterion to make guidance for the translation from macro and micro views. In macro level, the translator focuses on the tone, characteristics, circumstance ambience of the original text; and in micro level, the research core turns into the connotation and hidden feelings. In order to obtain a faithful translation, the translator reviews and analyzes the translation from both sides, hoping to make it more authentic from all angles.