A Project Report On The Translation Of The Lieutenant(Chapter ?)

This thesis is a report on English-Chinese translation practice based on the novel The Lieutenant written by Australian writer Kate Grenville.This novel focuses on ethnic contact in the Australia colonial era and narrates the story of a clever but shy astronomer Daniel Rooke.A series of stories was taken place with the Aborigines after Rooke followed Navy to Australia,which manifests the contradictions between the early European colonists and the colonies.Kate?s “Colonial Trilogy” has got the attention from the academic fields and was also popular among readers.Therefore,the translator selects the second book The Lieutenant as the translation material.This translation practice takes Eugene Nida's functional equivalence as the theoretical guide and provides a case for this theory in the translation of literary works.The translation practice is guided by Nida?s functional equivalence and combines with translation strategies,difficulties in translation practice like long and difficult sentence and cultural sentence were solved.In addition,the translation practice broadens the channel of spreading Australian culture for Chinese readers.The translator adopts Eugene Nida's functional equivalence during translation to achieve the optimal conversion between the source language and the target language.The solved major and difficult problems during English-Chinese translation are mainly as follows: proper nouns,long sentences and cultural translation.It also involves the translation of Australian aboriginal languages.The functional equivalence theory emphasizes functional equivalence between languages instead of the rigid equivalence of the surface meaning.Therefore,the translator takes the linguistic differences between languages into full consideration,analyzes the source text from vocabulary,syntax and discourse respectively as well as uses effective translation strategies to solve the key and difficult problem of English-Chinese translation.Taking Nida?s functional equivalence as a guide,the translator learnt that the translation of literary works needs multiple considerations to achieve the complete meaning of source text.For the equivalence of vocabulary,the translator pays attention to the accuracy of proper nouns and terminology and handles them by searching relevant background information;in terms of the equivalence of syntax,the translator carefully analyzes the source language and uses translation strategies such as the adjustment of word order,explicit vague reference and word formation to reach a coherent translation;for the equivalence of discourse,the translator combines the novel?s chapters with the specific context and uses semantic addition to realize the equivalence of the translation.Last but not least,the translator respects Austrian aboriginal culture and considers the most natural language expression,so the translator uses the way of untranslatability and free translation to solve cultural translation.The translator deeply understands the importance of literary translation that can spread various cultures through translation practice,so the translator needs contribute efforts to literary translation with the sense of responsibility.