Report On Translation Of Comrades Of War

Beijing Ru Yi Xin Xin Cultural Development Co., Ltd. races to be the first in bringing in seven novels written by Sven Hassel, who is known as the "godfather" of military novels in the Europe literary world. At the end of2011, the company committed the present author of this report to translating Comrades of War (230,000Chinese characters), the third of the seven-series novels.Military novel translation has always been a challenge to translators. Generally speaking, military experts’ versions are lacking in vitality, while translators with rich literary quality are not skilled in dealing with military terms. In fact, military terms can be well dealt with in the preparation for the translating. However, reproducing the cruel and bloody battle fields and vivid characters in intriguing plots pose a real challenge to translators. Therefore, the present author has resorted to dynamic context theory, say, adaptation theory and cognitive context theory, for the praxis of translating Comrades of War, and completed this report based on the translation practice.From the perspective of dynamic context theory, translation is also a choice-making process. In this report, the present author focuses on the choices of translation strategies and methods in translating. She holds that in the understanding of the original text, the translator should explore the implied meaning in the light of relevance theory based on the cognitive context to make a full and correct interpretation, while in the stage of expressing, the translator should adapt to various cultural contexts and employ proper translation strategies and translation methods. Specifically, in accordance with the target readers’expectancy and acceptance, the dominant strategy adopted by the translator is domestication, while foreignization is a necessary complementary strategy in dealing with heterogeneous cultural factors like religion. The choice of translation methods is also essential to meet the target readers’ need, if the translator can find in target language an item of a certain degree of equivalence to the original one, he/she can adopt methods adapt to the target language, i.e. idiomatic translation and communicative translation. For instance, idiomatic translation is adopted in translating slang, and communicative translation is adopted in translating onomatopoeia. If the translator can find a counterpart in the target language, he/she can use the methods adapt to the source language, i.e. literal translation. In the whole translating process, the present translator has taken readers’ expectancy and acceptance into consideration all along. Besides, other factors such as the translator’s assessment on the cultural background of the original text and the original author’s writing style, also affect the translator’s choice of translation strategies and methods.Reflecting on the translation practice, the present author finds that some mistranslations are avoidable through thorough analysis of context and polishing of the version can also be achieved on the basis of context theory. In a word, dynamic context theory guides the present author’s translating of Comrades of War and provides good reference for her future translation.