A Report On The Chinese-English Translation Of Brief History Of Urban-rural Areas

Brief History of Urban-Rural Areas is a short novel written by famous female writer Fan Xiaoqing and won The Fourth Lu Xun Literature Prize---Short Novel Prize.This exquisite works captures the urban-rural relations during the urbanization,and makes people realize the changes of new life.The female writer in Suzhou is endowed with specific exquisiteness and sharpness,thus giving this works appealing features,high literary and artistic values.Brief History of Urban-Rural Areas claims a large number of words and sentences with Chinese characteristics,such as Chinese idioms,Chinese colloquialism.In translating,the author encounters two major problems: first,the differences in historical and cultural backgrounds between China and the West.The author needs to consider how to avoid loss of information and convey the spirits of original works;second,the difference in language expressions between China and the West.The author needs to consider how translation conforms to the reader’s language habits.Under the guidance of Lawrence Venuti’s translation theory,the author finds that two translation skills-domestication and foreignization-can effectively tackle those two problems.To make up the differences in historical and cultural backgrounds,the author combines foreignization with domestication,employing literal translation plus annotation,free translation plus annotation and transliteration plus annotation,so as to try to avoid the loss of information and to convey the cultural meanings of the original works;To make up the difference in language expressions,the author mainly adopts domestication strategy,employing free translation,omission and skill of borrowing the corresponding expressions,so as to ensure that the translation conforms to target language expressions and reads smoothly and fluently.It is expected that efforts of the author can provide some references for future translation of Chinese literature.