A Report On The Translation Of Children Rental Store(Chapter 2-5)

Comparing with the radical social reforms happened in Meiji and Showa, Taisho Era was relatively stable with fast economic development as a transitional period. However, under the seemingly harmonious stability, there lied remarkable disparity among the rich and the poor, and the people generally led quite a miserable life.“Children Rental Store” is a story composed under the background of the underclass’ life in Taisho Era, which is just the research object of this thesis. “Children Rental Store” the title itself is full of interest, but the plots mainly consist of descriptions of the miserable lives of those civil vendors and prostitutes for specific persons. Those seemingly humorous stories reveal the dark side of the society at that time and depict the miseries and sorrows of the people in that era. Concerning this research object, there are many dialogues and conversations in it, which contains a great number of cultural and customary expressions that bring about lots of difficulties for correct understanding and J-C translating. Therefore, translating “Children Rental Store” as a research practice for obtaining master’s degree is both a good chance to offer a concise Chinese version of the source work and a challenge for the present researcher to perform the task.Both the translated texts and the corresponding reports are independent researches under the instruction of the present author’s supervisor. Translation reports can be divided into four parts: I. A general introduction of the author of the source text, the text itself, and the excerpted parts translated by the present author. II. A brief introduction of the present author’s pre-translating preparations, methods for ensuring the quality of the translated version, and the general process of translating and time consuming. III. An analysis of the source text, which includes two perspectives: i. Compensation means for translation and case analyses; ii. An analysis of the words, expressions and sentences with typical Chinese and Japanese linguistic characteristics. IV. A conclusion of translation deficiencies, which summarizes what can be learned from the translating process and what should be cared about concerning the translating experience.