A Report On The Translation Of The Girl On The Train (Chapter1-2)

This paper is an English to Chinese Translation Report on the first two chapters of The Girl on the Train written by Paula Hawkins, a famous African-English writer. It is a suspension novel, which tells us that there exist all kinds of emotional conflicts between three women and the same man. Faced with the same marriage breakdown, three women conduct different actions but with the same human weaknesses: abandonment and self-deception. According to the time order, it is written by the first person narrator through diary style. It is full of suspenseful matters and tortuous plots with refined expressions, which makes it readable and at the same time readers can further learn the characteristics of western suspension novels and its female characterized.Catford’s Translation Shift Theory is adopted as the construction, which focuses more on the language itself compared with other theories. In spite of the easy source language, it is better to weigh the words and expressions and consider how the English should be translated into Chinese in order to get perfect translations. Therefore, the Shift Theory giving effective suggestions for paper writing can be applied and in the meantime enhance the paper’s normalization and operability. On the basis of practice and theory, this paper analyzes the translation difficulties which reflect on details description and suspense atmosphere building. In order to work out difficulties, shift approaches are adopted, including Level Shift and Category Shift. Combining the theory with specific examples, I illustrate the four approaches in detail with a purpose of gaining perfect translations by deliberating expressions.Through this translation practice, I get to know to be an excellent translator needs to own a fund of knowledge as well as language competence. With my knowing the strengths and weaknesses, there is a long way to go.