A Report On The Translation Of Under The Dome

Under the Dome is based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King. The premiereepisode has attracted13.53million viewers, hitting a high record of ratings. It has won the15th Teen Choice Awards in2013and nominated for Best Summer TV Show award. And thebook was ranked first in the bestseller list of New York Times once it was published in2009.Fans’ enthusiasm for the TV series upsurges the popularity of the novel. Having tried totranslate the novel a long time ago due to the great passion for the TV series, I now under theguidance of translation theories, make an analysis of the translation of the first three chaptersof the book.Under the Dome tells a story happened in a small town in Maine named Chester’s Mill,where a huge, transparent, indestructible dome cuts the town off all of a sudden from the restof the world. As there’s no Internet access, mobile signals and limited radio communication,people trapped inside the dome must find ways to survive with diminishing resources andrising tensions. While military and the government and the media outside attempt to break itdown, a small group of people inside attempt to figure out where the dome came from, what itis indeed, and when or if it will go away. And as time goes on, more and more secrets areemerged in such a small town.Author of this novel, Stephen Edwin King (born on September21,1947), is a productivewriter of suspense, contemporary horror, science fiction and fantasy. His books have soldmore than350million copies, many of which have been adapted into feature films, televisionmovies and comic books. Stephen King has published fifty novels, including seven under thepen name of Richard Bachman, and five non-fiction books. He has written nearly twohundred short stories, most of which are included in nine short fiction collections. Many of his stories are with his hometown Maine as setting. King is also a writer who has wonnumerous awards such as Bram Stoker Awards, World Fantasy Awards, British FantasySociety Awards, In2003, the National Book Foundation awarded him the Medal forDistinguished Contribution to American Letters. He has also received awards for hiscontribution to literature for his entire oeuvre, such as the World Fantasy Award for LifeAchievement (2004), the Canadian Booksellers Association Lifetime Achievement Award(2007) and the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America(2007).Based on Guo Jianzhong’s three criteria on evaluating the translation of science fiction,which are being literary, being scientific, and being popular, the author translated threechapters excerpted from Under the Dome written by Stephen King. According to Guo’s theoryand the characteristics of science fiction, what methodology of translation the author adoptedis literal translation or free translation combined with foreignizaton, that is, in light oflinguistic problems, literal translation and free translation are adopted to guarantee thesmoothness of the rendition; whereas from the aspect of culture, foreignization is used toreserve the alien flavor. Some translation examples are also listed and analyzed in the thesisfrom the perspectives of translation strategies and skills and also some problems arose in theprocess of translation.This translation report consists of five chapters:Chapter one is a brief introduction, which presents the development of science fiction,and then leads to the topic of this paper.Chapter two describes the background, the purpose and significance of the topic.Chapter three introduces the translation criteria proposed by Guo Jianzhong in thetranslation process, namely being literary, being scientific and being popular.Chapter four presents the translation strategies and post-translation proofreading process.On translation strategies, a number of translation examples are demonstrated according to this translation theory. As to the translation proofreading work, this paper summarizes the researchfindings and pointed out some problems in the process of translation and limitations of theory.Chapter five is a conclusion of the thesis.