A Report On The Chinese Translation Of The Secret Of The Old Clock

The translation material is excerpted from the first nine chapters of The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene,an American female writer.The novel mainly tells the story of Nancy Drew,an 18-year-old girl,who struggles with the selfish and greedy Tophams to find a hidden will in order to help a group of people who could have been heirs.Nancy,assisted by her father,a lawyer,launched a series of explorations and eventually found the other will.The original text is simple,refined,suspenseful and readable.Readers can feel the characteristics of western mystery stories and appreciate different customs.In the report,Nida's functional equivalence theory is applied.Compared with other theories,it emphasizes “content first,form second”,and achieves that the response of target readers to the target text is basically the same as that of source readers to the source text.After the completion of translation practice,the author reviews and summarizes the process of translation,and analyzes the difficulties and the strategies adopted from three aspects: lexical translation,sentence translation and the handling of cross-cultural factors.The main difficulties in vocabulary translation lie in the choice of meaning and the translation of vocabulary.Choosing the right meaning and translating freely on the basis of loyalty to the original text are essential to enhance the readability of the translation.In terms of sentence translation,adjusting word order and translating is the key to make the target text smoother.In dealing with cross-cultural factors,the author tries to make the translation concise and easy to understand by adjusting the expression,such as the names of persons and places.Finally,the author summarizes the translation experience and weaknesses,understanding that,although perfect translation almost does not exist,the target text will be greatly improved and translator's ability will be better developed with repeated revising and polishing.