A Report On The Translation Of The New Negro:The Life Of Alain Locke(Chapter Six)

The translation material is selected from chapter six of The New Negro: The Life of Alan Locke,a biography written by Jeffrey Stewart.The chapter six mainly tells Locke's last year in Harvard and the whole process of applying for Rhodes Scholarship,as well as how to win the Scholarship and successfully studying in Oxford.The biography has its unique linguistic characteristics which it objectively describes the historical facts,and the language has a certain literariness.According to the characteristics of the original text,translator adopts the Skopos Theory to guide this translation practice.Skopos theory holds that the Skopos of translation determines translation strategies and the Skopos rule is the first principle to be followed in translation.Skopos theory gets rid of the shackles of the equivalence,focuses on source language,breaks the theoretical dispute around literal translation and free translation as emphasis,and finds a way out for the special culture to solve the cultural factors in translation.For translator,the primary purpose of this translation practice aims to overcome cultural barriers,introduces this great black scholar to Chinese readers,presents an accurate and vivid translation,and gains readers' recognition.Therefore,the translator needs to capture typical details of the original text in a full range,try to figure out the meaning of original text and carefully elaborate the wording of the translation to ensure the accuracy and readability of the translation.Supported by Skopos theory,this translation report discusses the specific translation strategies and methods of biographies from the lexical and sentence levels to solve the translation difficulties.The translation of The New Negro: The Life of Alan Locke provides Chinese readers with a comprehensive understanding of this outstanding black scholar,which is conducive to enhancing Chinese readers' understanding of the situation of black people in the last century and promoting the exchange of Chinese and Western cultures.Through this translation practice,the translator aims to deepen the understanding of translation theory,improve her translation,and attract more scholars to devote themselves to the field of biography translation.