A Report On E-C Translation Of Uncle Tom's Children (Excerpt)

This report is based on the English-Chinese translation of the sixth piece Bright and Morning Star in African American writer Richard Wright's collection of novellas Uncle Tom's Children.This project is directed by the author's mentor Professor Bo Zhen-jie.As a member of the translation team,the author is in charge of the translation of the last three novellas in the collection.The protagonist Sue in Bright and Morning Star is a brave black woman who refuses to succumb to the oppression and humiliation of the white ruling class.She is forced to watch her son being tortured and killed,and at the end of the story,she sacrifices herself for the Communist Party and her fellow comrades.In this story,Wright presents the African American people's life in poverty,humiliation,fear and violence in the 1930s through vivid and realistic description.There are three major requirements for this project:firstly,the translation must be faithful to the original;secondly,the translation must be easy to read and fluent,and conform to the habits of Chinese expressions;and lastly,the translation of technical terms shall be in accordance with general specifications.Based on these requirements,the author chooses German translation scholar Juliane House's model for translation quality assessment as the theoretical guidance for this project.In the translation process,there are five major problems:the use of African American Vernacular,the style of dialogues,religious elements,symbolism and different ways of expressions between English and Chinese.According to the above-mentioned requirements and House's translation theories,the author deals with these problems respectively using different approaches,such as the use of informal words and phrases,simple and short sentences,footnotes and Chinese expressions more familiar to the target readers.As the report reveals,a great deal of external factors besides the linguistic ones should be reasonably taken into consideration in the translation of literary texts,such as the social and cultural conditions of the target language,the needs of the target readers,and the writer's personal stance and social status.It is hoped that this report can bring more attention to Richard Wright's works and African American Literature in China and offer some referential values for literary translation to other translators.