A Translation Report On Best Kept Secrets(excerpts)

The report mainly discusses about how the translator completed the translation task, and the theory or method adopted. The translation of Best Kept Secrets(Chapter 11-20, and odd chapters between 22-46 chapters) is considered to be the first important step of this translation report, while making analyses on the strategies employed during the process of translation is regarded as the second.The main theory that guides the process of translation is the text typology put forward by Katharina Reiss in 1971. Originally, this theory was proposed to offer criteria for judging the quality of a translation. As for the translator, the deeper she knows the criteria for assessing a translation, the better she will accomplish the translation work. By analyzing the elements and functions the source texts possess, Reiss classify text into three types: content-focused text, form-focused text and appeal-focused text. In her opinion, a text usually owns more than one function or element, which may lead to the overlaps within one text. This theory inspires the translator a lot during the process of completing the translation report, thus she selects examples of all these three representative text types within one fiction for further discussion.