On Translating English Long And Complicated Sentences

While reading an English novel,people are always confronted with the long and complicated sentences involved in the text,which are regarded as a relatively difficultmodule,usually hinder translator ' s understanding to the source text.As a result,it is absolute that this kind of sentence becomes the focus and impediments of translation.Generally speaking,the structure of a long and complicated sentence is more complex,and is often characterized by the general use of several kinds of subordinate clauses and the flexible combinations of prepositions and participle phrases.All of these generate the difficulties of analysis.In consequence,the translation of English novel,especially those including a great deal of long and complicated sentence,has higher requirements for translators.In other words,the translator must,before translating the long and complicated sentences,master extensive knowledge about grammar,texts,and cultural background information;refer to a mass of related information and theory while translating and make his or her revision after the first translation,with high concentration from time to time in order to make sure the quality of translation.The translation material of the report is excerpts from Karen McQuestion' s From ADistant Star,refers to the first four chapters and parts of the fifth chapter.This book tells a romantic and magic story,and many sentences involved in this novel impressed the translator through its exquisite details and vivid description,which are to some extent complicated.From the perspective of the first reading,it is not easy to translate those sentences into smooth and faithful Chinese version.Therefore,all these attracted the interests and attention of the translator.And the long and complicated sentences are chosen as the research topic in order to help the reporter to translate them into a better version.During the translation of writing the report,the translator has analyzed the long andcomplicated sentences contained in the romantic novel,which are featured by complex syntactical structures,usually involve more than one subordinate clauses and full of imagination.According to the translation practice,the translator begins her analysis to these sentences in order to find solutions and skills to deal with the problem and for the purpose of offering more practical ways for other translators.The writer has learned from various scholars like Chen Hongwei and Lian Shuneng and constructed the whole report on the basis of the syntactical differences between Chinese and English.With the guidance of the theory,the translator has adopted the literal and liberal translation and various translation skills such as division,reconstruction,addition,conversion and so on.At the same time,the translator tries her utmost to make the translation more faithful and take the readers' feeling into consideration in order to improve the translation.The report consists of four parts.Chapter one is task description,which talks about background of the task and gives a brief introduction to its structure.Chapter two is introduction to the preparation and work of pre-translation,inter-translation,and post-translation phase.In this Chapter,the translator has told some knowledge about long and complicated sentence.Also,it has given an introduction to the syntactical differences between Chinese and English,briefly spread out the corresponding solving measures on each kind of situation.Chapter three is divided into three parts in accordance with its theoretical basis in chapter two.From the point of macroscopic view,hypotaxis and parataxis are boasted as the most prominent characteristics of syntactical differences between English and Chinese.And Chinese belongs to topic prominent language while English is involved in subject-prominent language.From the point of microscopic view,the report has deepened to dig out the differences on word order and subjects between Chinese and English.The report gives its analysis to the sentence constituents especially those leading to the complexity and increasing the length of sentence.In the research of different focuses between Chinese and English,the research pays attention to the artistic features of Chinese,which highlights the function and importance of topic,and emphasizes the omission and reconstruction of subjects of the original text.All in all,this chapter has given its detailed analysis of the source text and corresponding solutions combining the translation material and long and complicated sentences from From A Distant Star.Chapter four gives its conclusion.In accordance with the above analysis,the fourth chapter points that the translation of long and complicated sentences in the romantic literature ought to combine the original text with the syntactical differences between Chinese and English,and pay attention to divide the elements of sentence for the purpose that the translation is done step by step.