A Translation Report Of The Only Story(Excerpts)under The Guidance Of Functional Equivalence

As an important literary genre,novel's translation work plays a pivotal role in promoting cultural communications among countries.This report is based on the first part of The Only Story,written by Harris Barnes,a renowned English novelist.The novel mainly describes a May-December romance,and the protagonists,Paul and Susan,meet and fall in love.The chosen excerpt is from the first half of Chapter I and serves as the leading part of the novel.Based on Eugene Nida's functional equivalence theory,translator had summarized some specific translation methods and strategies from the perspective of specific contents of the novel,mostly including figure descriptions,environmental descriptions and some comprehensions of life from the narrator.Figure descriptions had been subdivided into four parts of appearances,actions,dialogues and mentalities based on the specific contents.Firstly,for the figure descriptions,translator applied some translation strategies including annotation,conversion,restructuring,addition and omission etc.and rhetorical devices such as metonymy to realize the transmission of the information;especially for some specific tones and italic words or expressions from figure dialogues had been extended their meanings.Furthermore,some exclusive words from Western culture had also been interpreted to conform to target readers' language habits.With regard to the environmental descriptions,translator used restructuring,conversion of voices and some cohesion devices to guarantee their coherence and smooth logic orders;last for the comprehensions of life,translator mostly extended some meanings to convey their deep connotation,thus realizing the transmission of the most exact signification.The translator had benefited a lot from the whole translation practice,not only felt the combination of bitterness and delight but understood the complicity and fun of the literary translation.It is hoped that the report will provide some insights for those who will engage in the translation work of novels,which is to convey its literature style and culture characteristics through the translation of foreign novels and guarantee the quality of the work.