A Report On E-C Translation Of Stories "A Flawless Silence" And "A Small Flame"

The task of this translation practice is to translate two short stories “A Flawless Silence” and “A Small Flame” written by Chinese American writer Yiyun Li from English to Chinese.The first story,by presenting the life of a Chinese American house wife Min,who always keeps silent to avoid the harassment from the father of a former marriage partner from time to time,illustrates the effect of harassment toward her life.The latter which tells the story of the Chinese American lawyer Bella,who comes back to China to search for her past shows the uncertainty life of the adopted children.The main themes of Yiyun Li's works are loneliness and isolation.Her short stories are concerned about social reality and people's inner world,about their special life experiences,which are worth introducing.The significances of this translation practice are as follows: First of all,it intends to make contributions to introducing good works of excellent writers.Secondly,translating these two stories helps to improve target readers' understanding towards the life style and situation of the Chinese Americans.Thirdly,the translation practice helps to improve the translator's practice capability and the sensibility to literature.Under the guidance of Eugene A.Nida's functional equivalence theory,translation skills including conversion,omission,and mutual transformation of affirmative and negative expression etc.are adopted to solve the problems in translation practice on levels of meaning,style and culture.There are six chapters in this report.Chapter One is the introduction to the translation practice,which briefs background information and significance of the translation practice.Chapter Two presents the practicing task,including the introduction to the original author and the analysis of original texts.Chapter Three is the theoretical framework,briefly expounds the functional equivalence theory.Chapter Four illustrates the translating process.Chapter Five uses cases to analyze the difficulties and solutions in translation.Chapter Six is the conclusion part,and it mainly sets forth the translator's gains and reflections during translation practice.