| This article is a report on English-to-Chinese translation. The task is selected from thenovel Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance written by Richard Powers, who is well-knownin modern American literature circles.The translator find this novel on an English website. This novel consists oftwenty-seven chapters, and the translator selects chapter one to three as translation task with alength of about11,000words. In chapter one, author tells about his experience in Detroit. Inchapter two, it tells about the background of the three protagonists and introduce the topicabout the photo. In chapter three, the author accounts for the life of Sander, a famousphotographer.The translator chooses this novel based on following reasons. Firstly, the translator isinterested in literature, especially American literature. Secondly, this novel is a represent ofinfofiction, covering many different disciplines from arts to science, and it can enrich andincrease people’s knowledge. Thirdly, Richard Powers is popular among American, and manyof his work sells good once published. So if the translator can publish Chinese edition of thisnovel, it must be popular. Lastly, this novel has not been translated into Chinese before, andthis translation practice is a good try.This paper falls into five parts: English-to-Chinese translation, task description,translation process, case analysis and summary. Part one is about the translation on theselected three chapters. Part two presents an introduction to the translation task and the authorRichard Powells. Part three is about the whole translation process. In this part, the translatordescribes the preparation work, revision and the actual difficulties in the translation process indetail. In part four, the paper analyzes the difficulties with Eugene A.Nida’s functional equivalence theory. Finally, in the last part, the translator summarizes the experience aboutthis translation activity. |
