A Report On E-C Translation Of Short Story Milk Blood Heat(Excerpts) Under The Guidance Of George Steiner’s Hermeneutic Translation Theory

Throughout the history of Chinese and foreign literature,the achievements of short stories which boast rich themes are obvious to all.The reason why short stories have always flourished in the field of literature is that they are able to convey profound meaning with short length,thus triggering the resonance of readers.The translation of short stories will be conducive to cross-culture communication and the development of literary translation.The source text selected for this translation report is excerpted from Milk Blood Heat,a collection of short stories by Dantiel W.Moniz,an African-American female writer.The collection consists of eleven separate short stories,three of which are translated for this study: Outside the Raft,Feast and An Almanac of Bones,which well portrays the minority female figures.The source text is unique in its style,with a tight,complex plot and an intriguing ending.In terms of language,the text is characterized by the inner monologue of the characters,using many long sentences and rhetorical devices,and extensive use of symbolic language to convey profound connotations.In this report,the translator will study the application of George Steiner’s fourfold translation motion theory to short story translation.In the first movement,the translator trusts the translatability of the source text and affirms the translation and cultural communication values of the text.In the movement of aggression,the translator implements free translation,conversion and translates the negative into affirmative to break the barriers of culture,society and the linguistic forms.In this process,the connotation conveyed by source text will be grasped at the lexical,syntactic and rhetoric levels.In the movement of incorporation,the translator incorporates the meaning of the source text into the target text from meaning and linguistic forms.Such translation strategies and methods as domestication and reorganization including linear translation and reversing are used,so that the target text can conform to the thinking mode and reading habits of target readers.However,the imbalance may be caused by a large number of external factors in the movement of incorporation.Therefore,the translator restores the balance by direct compensation like annotation and indirect compensation like amplification in the movement of compensation.Through this translation practice,it can be seen that Steiner’s fourfold translation motion theory enjoys a strong guiding role in the translation of short stories.Under the guidance of the fourfold translation motion theory,the translator can effectively break the barrier between the source text and the target text and convey the exact meaning of the source text as well as enhance the readability of the translation.Hopefully,it will contribute to further research of the translation of short stories.