A Report On The Translation Of Shane Filan's Autobiography My Side Of Life

With the frequent cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries, autobiography has become a common subject of translation. In October,2014, Shane Filan, former lead singer of Westlife, published his autobiography My Side of Life, which not only records his interesting childhood experience and Westlife's wonderful stories of its formation, popularity and disbanding, but also describes his torturous bankruptcy experience and his new solo music career.This practice report is based on the 20000-word translation of the first two chapters of My Side of Life. The language used within the text is very plain and colloquial, with few long and difficult sentences. According to Newmark's text type theory, this autobiography belongs to expressive text, hence semantic translation is found suitable for practice. The source text also possesses informative function and vocative function, so communicative translation is used to deal with some words and sentences. Under the guidance of semantic translation theory, the author mainly adopts literal translation to deal with some sentences with rhetorical devices and some long, difficult sentences, in order to exhibit the original style of the source text. And under the guidance of communicative translation theory, the author uses interpreting, annotation and other skills to translate culture-loaded words, whose cultural connotations are fully embodied. Besides, the author uses free translation, interpreting, shifting, extending and other skills to translate slangs and idioms. In this way, the translation becomes more understandable for target readers.Through this translation practice, the author attempts to exhibit the original style of the source text and mould an authentic Shane Filan for readers. Besides, through the discussion of the translation skills of words, sentences and rhetorical devices under the guidance of Newmark's translation theories, it is hoped that this translation practice provides a practical paradigm for autobiography translation.