A Report On The Translation Of Richard The Third(Chapter1-5)

This is a translation report and the source text is excerpted from the first chapter to the fifth chapter of Richard the Third, a biography written by Jacob Abbott, an American writer of children’s book. The contents of each chapter are about Richard’s mother, his father, Richard in his childhood, his elder brother Edward the Fourth and the king-maker Warwick. All the chapters are built around Richard and all the characters are really contributing to Richard’s life afterwards. Richard the Third (1452-1485) was a king of England and the last king of the House of Plantagenet. He took the throne after he killed his nephew Edward the Fifth. Despite his bad reputation as a usurper, he was very talented in politics.Main body of this report can be mainly divided into four parts:description of this translation task, translation process, case analysis of translation and the summary and review of this translation task. Based on the functional equivalence theory proposed by Eugene A. Nida, a famous American linguist and master in translation, the report aims to represent equivalence as much as possible in contents and literary form between the original text and translated text. It also aims to represent that readers of the translated text can understood and appreciated the text in general as the original text readers do while combining functional equivalence theory with specific translation methods. The key points are words, long sentences, Middle English and letters. In this report, methods of amplification, Chinese four-character words, transliteration, free translation and mixed translation are used to deal with words; methods of translation in original orders, reconstructing, splitting and inserting are used in long sentences translation; functional equivalence theory is used to deal with letters and Middle English. In the process of translation practice, functional equivalence theory provides a strong theoretical guidance in English-Chinese translation. In the meantime, the whole translation process makes the author aware that a qualified translator needs to keep up one’s practical skills and maintain strict learning attitude.