E-C Translation Of The Third Chapter Of The Valley Of Amazement And A Critical Commentary

The MTI translation report focuses on analyzing translation approaches the translator adopts in the translation of Chapter3of the novel The Valley of Amazement in an attempt to discuss how to achieve functional equivalence in translation.The Valley of Amazement, from which Chapter3is taken as the source text, is a novel written by Amy Tan, a Chinese American woman writer. Set in historic China in1912, the novel tells a story that happens in a courtesan house in Shanghai, co-narrated by LuLu, an American woman who is the owner of the courtesan house; and Violet, her daughter of mixed-blood. In the translated chapter, Violet is separated from her mother and then is sold to a rivaling courtesan house, where she is trained by an older girl, Magic Gourd. This chapter deals with mother-daughter relationship between the two main characters in a historic-specific context, with a strong sense of denial, resistance and intrigue mental activities. It contains many historic-specific words, expressions and idioms, making it hard to achieve functional equivalence in historic-specific context in translation.By analyzing typical examples in the translation, this MTI translation compares approaches of literal translation and free translation on lexical and syntactic levels. It suggests that free translation is more effective in achieving functional equivalence in historic-specific context in translation.