A Report On E-C Translation Of Uncle Silas (Excerpt From Volume Ⅱ)

Gothic fiction is a branch of the English literature. It originated in England in the second half of the 18th century, and enjoyed popularity for a time in the 19th century. Elements found in Gothic fiction usually include horror, mystery, suspense, death, deterioration, supernatural factors, and Gothic architecture, etc.This project, namely E-C translations of Uncle Silas, is actually a subproject of the E-C translations of the Penguin Classics. As a member of this project, the author is in charge of the translation of the second volume, under the guidance of Professor Bo Zhenjie, supervisor of the author and leader of this project.Uncle Silas is a three-volume Victorian Gothic mystery-thriller novel written by the renowned Irish novelist Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Due to length limitations, the report will only discuss chapter two, chapter five, chapter ten, and chapter fourteen from the second volume for they are more representative and worthwhile for research.The report contains a brief introduction to the project, the workflow description, an overview of the source text, a study of Gothic fictions, as well as a detailed case analysis of problems encountered during the translation. With fully consideration of the background information, the problems are analyzed and categorized so that appropriate tactics are adopted accordingly. Through analysis, it could be concluded that when dealing with Gothic fictions, the translators are supposed to pay due attention to the context, the textual features as well as the background knowledge of the target readers, so that the translation could not only keep the source-text information, but also is easily accepted and understood by the receivers.