A Report On The E-C Translation Of Giles Goat-Boy(Excerpt)

This report is based on Chapter Seven of the First Reel(Volume One)of Giles Goat-Boy.The translation project is initiated and the source text is provided by the publisher.As one of major works of famous American postmodernism writer John Barth,Giles Goat-Boy has not had a Chinese version,so this translation practice is of practical significance.The novel has about 300 thousand words in total,but for the purpose of copyright protection,only a small part of it is excerpted and analysed in this report.The translation project is discussed on the macro and micro level.On the macro level,the project process including four major stages is recounted.Then on the micro level,the focus switches to specific issues,that is,the difficulties in translation:understanding and translating Black English Vernacular,translating coined terms and names,and dealing with non-linguistic marks such as italics and dashes.Given these difficulties,corresponding translation strategies are adopted under the guidance of Functional Equivalence Theory.To be specific,the strategy of "using colloquialisms plus dialect expressions" is adopted to translate Black English Vernacular;the coined terms and names are classified and translated with the strategies of literal translation,transliteration,free translation,and "zero translation plus explanatory annotations";as for italics,strategies of neglecting italics,using mark of emphasis,and "zero translation plus footnotes" are adopted;and the dashes are retained,deleted,or transferred according to their functions.By overcoming these difficulties with flexible and proper strategies,the translator strives for a translation as faithful as possible in terms of meaning and style and aims to provide a translation acceptable to target readers.