On Chinese To English Science Fiction Translation Strategies With Folding Beijing As An Example

On August 21st,2016,Hao Jingfang won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette for Folding Beijing.The novel was translated by Ken Liu,who is also the translator of The Three-Body Problem,which won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel.Translation has played an important role in introducing Chinese science fiction novels to the world.It is worth studying what translation strategies can be used to guide Chinese-to-English sci-fi translation.Guo Jianzhong’s book Studies of Sci-Tech Translation is the first monograph on sci-tech translation in China.Based on his translation practice,Guo proposed three standards for English-to-Chinese sci-fi translation:literacy value,science factor,and plain language of the work should be retained in translation.The three standards,however,are too abstract to be applied in real sci-fi translation practice.The author of the thesis takes Folding Beijing as an example,and focuses on one aspect of each standard to study Chinese-to-English sci-fi translation strategies:idioms,pure fictional contents,and figures of speech such as metaphor and simile.In conclusion,Guo’s standards can also be applied to Chinese-to-English sci-fi translation.Idioms can be omitted when they are unnecessary,or translated according to their context meaning.For translation of pure fictional contents,amplification and rearrangement of word order can be adopted.Similes and metaphors can be retained or omitted in translation according to the context.In some cases,metaphors can also be translated as similes.