A Translation Practice Report On Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life(Excerpts)

This thesis is an English-Chinese translation practice report,which mainly translates Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life written by Marta Mcdowell,an American horticulture teacher.The book Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life perfectly interprets Emily as a great female poet.Although her poems are obscure to a certain degree,when reading the book,readers can understand that Emily has created a lot of great poetry due to her love for plants.The original text of this translation mainly extracts the second half of the First Chapter of Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life.This part explores the scenery of late summer and autumn in the Garden,and also reflects Dickinson' s love for plants.It is the plants in the garden that inspire Dickinson,and Dickinson writes countless beautiful poems related to plants.During the translation process,the translator is confused by the following questions: First,Poetry.While introducing plants in the original text,the author cites many plant-related poems.These poems are simple in language but intriguing.Due to the different requirements for poetry in Chinese and English,it is difficult for the translator to grasp the rhythm of translation of these poems during the translation process.Second,Long sentences.The author uses many long and difficult sentences in the original text to introduce the plants in the garden.Due to the complex sentence structure and the different cultural background,in this regard,the translation of the long and difficult sentences should not only be accurate,but also the language style of the original text should be respected.This sets obstacles for the translator.Simply studying Dickinson' s poetry is a bit boring,but by reading Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life,translator can not only understand the art of gardening,but also learn more Dickinson's poetry,harvesting happiness.In the process of translating practice,the translator uses Eugene Nida' s functional equivalence theory as the basis to ensure that the original text style and structure remain unchanged,using translation methods such as dynamic conversionof prepositions,sequential translation,split translation,to deal with the major and difficult problems in translation,so that the readers of the translation understand the original text as much as possible.This translation practice gives the translator many inspirations.For a high level of English and Chinese bilingual translators,good Chinese-English conversion ability is a prerequisite,but a strong knowledge base and a positive learning attitude are also required.And the translator should be persistent with translation practice,lifelong learning and exploration.Since then,translator can go further and further on the road of translation.