A Report On The E-C Translation Of The Last Man(Excerpt)

Science fiction(SF)belongs to popular literature,and the principle of SF translation must be guided under the principle that literary translation should be creative.Looking at the English-Chinese versions of foreign classic science fiction,many of them are heavily exotic that cannot conform to the target readers' taste,which is a concrete manifestation of the translator's negligence of the target readers.In this light,the author decides to take the Reception Aesthetics,which emphasizes the readers' centrality,as the guiding theory in this translation practice.The Last Man is an apocalyptic science fiction novel composed by the famous British writer Mary Shelley.Based on the Reception Aesthetics theory and from the perspective of the target readers,this report explores the specific methods applicable to the re-creation of English-Chinese translation of this work.Through the analysis of the source text,the author finds that: there are many allusions,pronouns and long-winded complex sentences in the original.Due to the different expression habits of English and Chinese,as well as the disparate cultural background,these linguistic phenomena are,to some extent,a kind of blank and indeterminate text for the target readers,which,if not handled properly,is likely to leave the readers difficulties or confusion in reading.Therefore,through a case study on how to effectively fill in the blanks and indeterminacy of the text to achieve the re-creation of the translation,the author draws the following translation methods: selectively fills in the gaps between scene fragments,semantic gaps caused by different culture,the vacancy of sentence elements and a loss of artistic effects,and appropriately concretizes the abstract description,semantic indeterminacy,textual connotation and the pronouns.These methods can help the readers shorten the aesthetic distance from the text and realize the fusion of their horizon with that of the text to the greatest extent.And at the same time,they retain the appeal structure,so as to attract the readers to participate in the text,which successfully achieve the re-creation of SF translation.The author hopes to provide a certain value for the study of English-Chinese translation of science fiction.