A Report On The E-C Translation Of In Search Of England (Chapter 3-4)

This translation report selects the third and fourth chapters of Morton's travel writing In Search of England as translation materials.As various language devices such as figures of speech are widely used in the text to express what the original author has seen and felt along his journey,this text is considered form-focused in general and can be categorized as an expressive text according to Reiss.Such text type focuses greatly on linguistic forms,and thus the translation should be aimed to preserve its original features.Based on Reiss' text typology theory,this report explores the translation methods for figures of speech in travel writings.Guided by Reiss' typology theory,the aim of this translation project is to restore the characteristics of the original text and evoke target readers' response similar to that of source readers.Having drawn on previous studies and taken into consideration the characteristics of the text,the author adopts four methods to deal with the main figures of speech in this project.Literal translation is used when a figure of speech in English also exists in Chinese,and has similar formation or function,such as metaphor,parallelism,onomatopoeia,etc.It also works when there are shared images or acceptable images in the two cultures.For figures of speech that rely heavily on form and phonology such as rhyme,the method of converting one figure of speech into another is employed to remove such language barriers.Annotation is used as a way of compensation to translate figures of speech such as allusions and metaplasm that boast cultural and regional features.Apart fromannotation,compensation here also includes using non-rhetoric but expressive language devices in Chinese such as four-character structures to save features of figures of speech which can neither be literally preserved or converted.Free translation is used as the last resort when there are images that might distort readers' understanding and are thus inappropriate to keep.The methods above cover major figures of speech in this project and serve to preserve their characteristics at maximum so as to elicit similar reader response.It is hoped that this inquiry will attract people's attention to travel writing translation and provide reference for the translation of figures of speech in such texts.