A Translation Report On The Stranger (Excerpts) From The Perspective Of Register

This is a translation report on the first five chapters of The Stranger by Harlan Coben, the famous suspense fiction writer of America. The fiction is about the story of the stranger whose identity and motivations are not clear. The stranger lives around and appears incidentally, telling Adam the secret of his wife. Finally the stranger smashes Adam's happy life.The guiding theory of the report is register theory. It is put forward by systemic functional linguist Halliday. This report is mainly about the analysis of translation difficulties under the influences of field, tenor and mode. While translating compound words and new words, the relevant field, tenor and mode of the words must be taken into consideration. As for the translation of complex sentences, the structure and logic of the sentences should be modified according to the register. Moreover, the translation of rhetoric is mainly influenced by tenor and mode. While translating character description, tenor's influences on the description of portrait and psychology should be considered. The application of field equivalence, tenor equivalence and mode equivalence to text translation is also discussed through the analysis of examples.Finally, the writer draws a conclusion that register theory has profound influences on fiction translation. The major factors of fictional narration, namely, environment, figure and plot are all under the influence of field and tenor. Mode mainly influences the style of the text. Furthermore, field, tenor and mode are interrelated and the change of one variant would influence the translation as well. In order to translate the style and meaning of source text correctly and naturally, field, tenor and mode should be considered accordingly.