A Study Of The English Translation Of Legends Of The Condor Heroes

Martial arts novels are a unique literary genre of China,carrying a strong Chinese classical culture.Jin Yong,as the master of martial arts novels,has pushed martial arts novels to a new height and his works are well received by readers.Although the development of martial arts novels is very mature in China,their translation and dissemination are inadequate because of the large number of poems,allusions,and words with Chinese characteristics in the novels.Therefore,it is particularly significant to study the translation of martial arts novels,and the study is conducive to further promoting the Chinese martial arts culture to the world.A Hero Born,the English version of Legends of the Condor Heroes translated by Anna Holmwood,was released in February,2018.It has gained widespread attention since its publication.This thesis takes A Hero Born as the research subject and conducts a comparative analysis of the source and target text under the guidance of functional translation theory.Through analysis,the author found that Holmwood has made a lot of omissions and paraphrases of the original text.She has omitted some historical and cultural information and the description of martial arts moves,which greatly improves the readability of the translation and meets the aesthetic expectations of English readers.Besides,the translator has paraphrased some culture-loaded words that are difficult for English readers to understand but essential in the translation,thus completing the crosscultural communication while being loyal to the original text.However,there are some mistranslations in the translation,which,to some degree,reduces the quality of the translation.These mistranslations may be due to the carelessness of the translator or the translator's misunderstanding of the source text.Based on the classification of translation errors put forward by Nord,the author classifies the mistranslations,analyzes the reasons for the mistranslation,and puts forward amendments to these mistranslations.Through the analysis of translation errors,the author further explores how to reduce mistranslations and improve the translation quality.Despite the fact that there are some flaws in A Hero Born,it is still a good attempt to spread Chinese martial arts culture to the world and it brings new enlightenment to the English translation of martial arts novels.