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

Richard Wright is the first well known African-American writer in the white world in the history of African-American literature.Uncle Tom's Children is his first-published collection of novellas.Its publication marked the beginning of modern black "protest' literature.And its Chinese version will help Chinese readers have a good understanding of both African-American literature and culture.This project is a subproject of a translation project,which is in the charge of the author's supervisor Professor Bo Zhenjie.The author assumed translation of the first three chapters.This report is based on translation of the third chapter,namely,"Down by the Riverside",and guided by the theoretical framework of Tytler's three principles of translation."Down by the Riverside" tells a story about a black man named Mann,who sailed a white boat stolen from Heartfield,and risked death to take his wife to see a doctor.It mainly includes four events.On his way to the hospital,he happened to meet the boat's owner,and had to kill him for self-defense;due to belated treatment because of bad weather and lack of boat,his wife lost her own life and her fuse;he rescued Heartfield's wife and children from the flood in the rain;after prosecuted by Heartfield's wife and children,he lost his life owing to his failure to run away.Plenty of African-American English are used in the source text to describe dialogues,psychology,action,expression and environment for characterization and promotion of the story lines,which vividly depicts African-American sufferings and struggles.The publisher put forward four translation requirements---that the target text should be faithful to the ideas of the source text;that the target text should have all the ease of target language;that the target text should conform to Chinese expression;that terminology in the target text should be in conformity with the norms of standard Chinese language.Based on these four requirements and source text analysis,the author chooses Tytler's "Three Principles" as the theoretical framework.Accordingly,Chinese colloquial method is adopted to transform language and psychological description,and standard Chinese method is used to display action,expression and environment.Besides,the author resorts to such translation techniques as borrowing,substitution,decolouring,etc..By applying the above-mentioned translation methods and techniques,the author aims to guarantee faithfulness and smoothness of the target text,and reflect the original style and manner of writing as much as possible.The author complements translation methods of African-American literature,with hope that this report can provide reference for African-American literature translation.