A Translation Report Of The Four Faces Written By Han Suyin Based On Tytler’s Three Translation Principles

The text for this translation practice is excerpted from The Four Faces written by Han Suyin,a Chinese-American female writer.It was composed in Han Suyin’s favourite genre of farcical stories starting from the "Neutralist Congress of Writers",intermingled with the bizarre death of a British girl.The text is characterized by colloquial dialogues,philosophical discussions of life values,descriptions of characters’ mentalities,as well as descriptions of Cambodia’s geo-culture,which makes it a precious novel featuring geopolitics.There are eight chapters in this book and the first chapter is chosen as the material for this translation practice.Firstly,this translation report is carried out with Tytler’s three translation principles as the guidance,adopting strategies of cultural annotation,amplification and omission.As such,this report aims to seek the faithfulness to the meaning of the original text from three aspects:the translation of culture-loaded words,clarification of the logical relationship between sentences and contextualization of word meaning.Secondly,the writing style of the original text is preserved by means of imitating parallel structure.Finally,through structural reorganization and idiomatic expression,the translator is supposed to keep the ease,smoothness and fluency in translation.This report is composed of five chapters:the first chapter introduces the author,background,and significance of the novel.The second chapter establishes the theoretical framework and applicability of Tytler’s three translation principles.The third and the fourth chapters are process description and case analysis,starting from three principles respectively with cases as examples under each principle.These two chapters focus on vocabulary and sentence translation strategies,so as to explore the applicability of the three principles.The fifth chapter summarizes the translator’s findings and shortcomings in this translation project,hoping to provide references for the future translation of such geopolitical texts.