The Application Of Translation Compensation Theory In The Translation Of Sinclair Lewis’s The Willow Walk

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) was the first American writer who won the Nobel Price for Literature. He is good at depicting scenes of little town, portraying philistine’s greedy lives, and satirizing "life style of American". His masterworks are full of sarcastic and humorous descriptions. The material of this thesis-The Willow Walk-is selected from the short story collection of Sinclair Lewis named Go East, Young Man on Class in America (2005), which is edited by Sally E. Parry.This thesis consists of three parts:The Willow Walk, the Chinese translation of it and cases study. Because the translation compensation theory combines Annotation, Contextual Amplification, Adaptation and other methods of translation into a unity, it is fully suitable to make Chinese readers get better understanding of American society in the early period of twentieth century. Hence the author applies translation compensation theory in the translation of The Willow Walk.In translation process, the author explores the general utility of some methods, such as Annotation, Adaptation, Contextual Amplification, and Generalization, in perspective of translation compensation theory at lexical level, discourse level, and aesthetical level as well as their effects in improving translational quality. The cases study consists of three levels of analyses. At lexical level, the author discusses Adaptation and Generalization. Adaptation is the first method being discussed in the thesis, and refers to applying Chinese four-ward phrases; the second method is Generalization. In order to ensure that translations remain the undisturbed beauty of form and content, the translator could choose to omit some relatively unimportant information. At discourse level, Annotation is the third compensation method discussed in the thesis. Because of the time and cultural differences, Chinese readers could encounter some confusion due to missing information in their reading process and these obstacles could be removed through Annotation. Contextual Amplification is the fourth method. The author applies Contextual Amplification in order to increase the readability of the novel and reduce confusion resulted from cultural and time differences. At aesthetical level, the author explores how to remain literary value of the source text as much as possible through compensation. It is hoped that this study could provide some insights and enlightenments for literary translators.