A Report On Translation Of Dear Life (Excerpt)

Alice Munro’s collection of short stories,Dear Life,was published in 2012,which was of great literary value and practical significance.Fourteen short stories in the collection portray various ordinary but distinctive female images.They have active,calm and inclusive attitudes to life,which is in line with the characteristics of women in today’s society who are increasingly independent with personality.The author hopes the translation of this work could help more Chinese readers feel the great artistic charm of Munro.In this translation practice,the author translated the first story,To Reach Japan,based on Newmark’s semantic translation and communicative translation strategies.Semantic translation emphasizes the source text so that it pays more attention to both the form and the meaning of the original text.Thus,literal translation is adopted for psychological realism description in order to retain the writing style of the original text while the reservation of em dash contributes to keep the original contents and Munro’s writing features.Communicative translation prefers to express information according to the language,culture and pragmatics of the target language.Therefore,several translation methods such as free translation,addition,omission,shift and rearrangement are used to increase the literariness,coherence and logicality of the translation,meeting the reading habits of readers in the target language.Combined with specific examples,this translation practice report analyzes the difficulties encountered in the process of translation and discusses a great number of translation methods adopted in the practice.The author believes that semantic translation and communicative translation are an inseparable whole in modern novel translation since they complement each other.Translators need to have a preliminary judgment of translation materials and adopt appropriate translation methods according to the actual situation in translation,ensuring that the translation not only conforms to the original text and the original style but also accords with the reading habits and aesthetic needs of readers in the target language.