A Report On E-C Translation Of Mafeking Road And Other Stories (Chapter 6 To Chapter 9)

Herman Charles Bosman is widely regarded as the greatest short-story writer in South Africa,and among his works Mafeking Road and Other Stories is the best-selling and has no Chinese translation yet.The translation project of Mafeking Road and Other Stories is presided by Prof.Zhao Wei,Supervisor of the authoress.This report is based on the authoress' translation of the sixth to ninth stories.Thematically,Mafeking Road and Other Stories reflects the Anglo-Boer wars(1880-1881/1899-1902),religion,racial discrimination,armed conflicts and the daily life of the Boer community,etc.Stylistically,Bosman tells these stories through the fictional veld story-teller Oom Schalk Lourens in an ironic way.These stories are also unique for the infusion of the cadence of Afrikaans speech in the English-language writing.The publisher sets three requirements for the translator:1)The Chinese translation should be faithful to the original work in terms of content,2)The Chinese translation should be smooth,expressive and idiomatic in terms of language,and 3)The standardized terminology should be used.The three requirements are consistent with Yan Fu's "faithfulness and expressiveness",which the authoress adopts as the guiding principles of this translation.Under these general principles,domestication and foreignization are used alternatively and different translation techniques such as transliteration and conversion are employed.As for the translation of style:1)The infusion of Afrikaans speech in the writing is typical of Bosman's works and such local color should be retained while smoothness is maintained.2)Dialogue is translated with the colloquial style to reflect the status and personality of the character in the context.3)Fictional narrator Oom Schalk Lourens is translated with faithfulness to reproduce Bosman narrative structure.Names of races and satire are translated with faithfulness and expressiveness to present the Anglo-Boer wars and racial discrimination,two main themes of Bosman's work.The authoress hopes that discussions in the report can provide a reference to readers,translators and researchers of Bosman's works and English literature of South Africa.