Reconstruction Of Foregrounding Features In Translating "I.D."

This thesis is a report on the translation of “I.D.” which is a short story byAmerican writer Joyce Carol Oates. The story is about an adolescent forced toidentify a dead body, bringing together themes of fear, denial and loneliness thateveryone can relate to. It goes through a young girl’s stream of consciousness anddisplays her ability to fight back in a world seemingly against her. In the story, theauthor uses many foregrounding skills to express the complicated thoughts andfeelings, which gives the story a unique style.Foregrounding is a practice of making something stand out from the surroundingwords or images (Leech and Short,2007). The translator has found in the process oftranslating “I.D.” that foregrounding features provide a valuable perspective fortranslation. It is important to reconstruct foregrounding features in translation.Therefore, the translator has carefully analyzed the text and paid attention toforegrounding features in translating the story, so as to maintain the unique style andconvey the original meaning of the source text.In the report, besides task description and process description, the translator hasconducted a text analysis of foregrounding features. The translator has first analyzedthe features in the source text and then explained how the problems caused by thosefeatures were solved in the translation process. In this way, the translator helps to raisetranslators’ awareness of foregrounding features and gives some reference for them todeal with similar translation problems. In the last part of the report, the translator hassummed up the experience and shortages in this translation work.