A Report On The Translation Of The Goldfinch (Chapters 1-4)

This is a translation project report for The Goldfinch, which is a latest novel written by American writer Donna Tarrt during 2013, this report extracts the first four chapters from the novel. The novel is about a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, Theo Decker, who is the survivor in an accident taking place in New York. However, his mother is killed by the accident and Theo gets a famous painting named The Goldfinch. Lost in his strange new life and tormented by his longing for his mother, he sticks to the painting to remind him of her, meanwhile the small, mysteriously fascinating painting ultimately draws Theo into the art world. With entrancing and vivid language, The Goldfinch has won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014.The translation is accomplished by the guidance of Skopostheorie. The first thing Skopostheorie concerns is the purpose of the translation, which determines the translation methods and strategies that translators adopted. This report studies the translation of The Goldfinch from the aspects of words, sentences and rhetorics with the guidance of Skopostheorie. For the aspect of words, skopos rule requires translators to adopt conversion, turning phrases into clauses, using reduplicated words and four-format words to make it smooth and powerful. For the aspect of sentences, skopos rule and coherence rule make translators use the following skills:following the original syntactic order, reinventing sentence structure, addition and omission to achieve the expected aim. For the aspect of rhetoric, skopos theory and fidelity theory requires translators to convey the content and rhetorical function of the source text. In conclusion, with the guidance of Skopostheorie, translators should choose proper translation methods and strategies to achieve the purpose of satisfying the target readers.The author hope this translation will gives more Chinese readers a chance to learn and experience the charm of the novel. Meanwhile, this novel has not been published into Chinese version, the author hope this translation effort will provide materials and related literary researches to readers. Finally, the author put the learned translation theory and skills into practice to improve translation ability.Through the translation, the author comes to realize the difficulties of literary translation, and realize that there are many deficiencies in this translation. The author should adopt solid foundation of English language and Chinese language, in addition, improve the accurate and thorough understanding of the original; improving the mastery of the Chinese is prerequisite. In conclusion, the author should accumulate miscellaneous knowledge, enlarge the scope to improve the translation ability.