Report On The Translation Of American Western Novels

Literature is the art of language, while the core of translation is language. Therefore, the most important issue for literary translation is the use of language. From the view of literary stylistics translation types, it includes prose translation, fiction translation, drama and film translation, poetry translation and the translation of children’s literature. As a kind of narrative literary genre, the novel represents social life through the description of shaping the character, the plot and the environment. As for that, it has become the most popular literary type. The purpose of translating a novel is for making readers “pleasant and explicit”.This thesis aims to report the Chinese to English translation of the American western novel Sin Killer. It mainly consists of four parts: introduction, preparation and analysis before translation, cases analysis and translation practice summary. The main characters of this American western novel Sin Killer mainly include: complex characters, winding plots, numerous narrative statements and dialogues, and the extensive use of personalized language and irony rhetorical devices. All of the above are the important and difficult points in translation. In the translation process, various translation theories are applied to solve these difficult points: use domestication and foreignization theory to translate Indian and English names, use affective tone to translate vocabularies that expresses praise or criticism, use textual cohesive devices to translate narrative statements and use context strategy to translate personalized language. After the case study, a summary was made to describe the reflection and guiding function of this translation process. It also pointed out the unsolved problems and improving parts among the translation process.