A Report On The Translation Of The Documentary Literature Chinese American Transnationalism (Excerpts)

This is the translation practice of the documentary fiction Chinese Americn Transnationalism, written by A Chinese American called Sucheng Chan. Given in Eugene Nida's functional equivalence theory, the author discusses the methods,strategies and problems which are involved in the progress of translation. The book mainly tells the story of the growth of American Chinese in the early twentieth century.The period, from 1882 to 1943, witnessed a blind anti-foreign in America. As a result of Chinese exclusion policy and immigration discrimination, the American-born Chinese experienced a critical period of Chinese and American history. In this context,Chinese immigrants were finally recognized by fighting with the mainstream society.Therefore, the fiction of Chinese American Transnationalism is historical, fantastic and thought-provoking. The author is aimed at providing some help and references for the translation of the historical events which are involved in the documentary literature.This work is the documentary literature, featured by both documentary and literature. As a result of the cultural diversity between English and Chinese,it is necessary to use the function equivalence theory as a bridge of language conversion.This method can help translator understand the deep meaning of the original text,playing a role of bridge. Guided by the theory of functional equivalence, the author analyzes the specific cases of translation combined with varieties of translation methods. The translator pays more attention to the method of faithfulness, and summarizes the translation strategies of the documentary literature as well. In the aspect of language features,it becomes one of difficulties how to restore these language features and its emotions as much as possible in the process of translation. The translator mainly focus on these four aspects -- the choice of words, restructuring and demolition, the Coherence of sentences, accordant locution in these process. Therefore,she analyzes the specific cases according the four aspects of the function equivalence theory.The paper is divided into three parts: the introduction, the main body and the conclusion.The first part is the introduction, in which the translator introduces this work, its author, motivation and intention for the translation.The second part is the main body which consists of three chapters. Chapter One is the overview of the translation, mainly includes the completion and the target of the translation practice, the brief introduction of the author and the book. Chapter Two introduces the process of translation, which is mainly divided into two stages-- the first draft and proofreading. After finishing the first draft, the translator moves on to proofreading and polishing the translation. Chapter Three is the core of the report,including the combination and comparison of translation strategies and the examples of difficult sentences in the book. According to the functional equivalence theory, in the translation process, varies difficulties can be solved from the four aspects, which are vocabulary equivalence, sentence equivalence, original equivalence and stylistic equivalence. Considered to the difficulties encountered in the process of translation, the translator should pay more attention to provide different methods and strategies.The last part is the conclusion. The translator analyzes these problems encountered in the process of translation and summarizes the sentiments she has learned in the process.