A Report On The English To Chinese Translation Of Just One Of Those Things

Just One of Those Things is a retro detective novel created by a new American female writer Dianna Killian,who writes under the pseudonym of D.L.Browne.In the story,as the heroine,detective Mary encounters many difficulties,and even risks her life to help the client Jack to solve an extortion case during the Great Depression in America.As a female writer,Dianna describes the story scenes and characters in detail.While telling the thrilling detective story,it also presents the life scenes of the American people in the 1920 s and the hardships of early Chinese immigrants.As a retro detective novel,some contents are unfamiliar to both Chinese readers and translators,which brings difficulties to translators.With the help of context theory,the translator has basically solved the problem of uncertainty of meaning in the original text,thus finishing the translation task.The role of linguistic context is mainly reflected in the determination of semantics and the expression of translation.Situational context,playing a more macroscopic role in translation practice,is not limited to sentences or chapters,but refers to the overall atmosphere of the article.Cultural context mainly helps translators convey correct historical facts and excavate implied cultural information.According to the characteristics and the previous translation practices of detective stories,this report is guided by context theory from three aspects: linguistic context,situational context and cultural context.It shows the influence of different context factors on the quality of translation.A number of given examples will demonstrate the important role the translation strategies play in determining the meaning of the original text and finding appropriate target language expressions,such as“diction”,“Chinese four-character phrase”,“conversion”,“amplification”,“omission” and“annotation”.The study shows that context theory has great application value in the translation of Just One of Those Things and can provide appropriate theoretical guidance for literary translation.