On The Translation Strategy Of English Long Sentences

The translation of English long sentences is one of the most difficult parts in the practice of English-Chinese translation. In this report, the fifth chapter of Postmodern Counternarmtives is chosen to be translated into Chinese. Postmodern Connternarmlives, a book of literary criticism, is written by Christopher Donovan. Its fifth chapter tries to introduce and evaluate American fiction writer Don DeLillo’s novel, in which his fictional narrative strategies and techniques are explored. It also shows how contemporary American writers reconcile postmodern literary values and those of traditional realism. The novels of Don DeLillo involved in the material are his masteipieces, including Americana, End Zone and so on. Among these passages, there are many English long and complicated sentences, which are complex usually in the sentence structure, or with many modifiers and even subordinate clauses. Therefore, the report’s author believes that the first step of dealing with those English long sentences is to clear up those sentences’structures, and then the proper translation strategies and techniques are chosen and adjusted in the process of translation. With the guidance of Eugene Nida’s functional equivalence theory, this report explores the translated material and then discusses about how the present author deals with these long sentences in terms of translation strategies and techniques in her translation process with the purpose that her translation will be made smooth and fit for the readers to know more about the original views of the fiction writer, Don DeLillo.There are four chapters involved in this report. The first chapter introduces Don DeLillo and his works. The domestic research background of English long sentence translation, the purpose and significance of this report are involved in this chapter. Chapter two states the translation theory of functional equivalence and some practical problems. The solution of the problems is also displayed in this chapter. The third chapter mainly presents how to cope with these English long sentences by means of literal translation strategy and some concrete techniques such as embedding and cutting in terms of Nida’s functional equivalence. The author conducts this issue in three classes:language feature, syntax structure and literary style. The conclusion part sums up the report, in which the author points out her own insights.