A Report On The Translation Of Death Of A Schoolgirl(Excerpt)

This is a project report on the translation of Death of a Schoolgirl written by Joanna Campbell Slan,an American writer.It is a detective fiction based on the characters,settings and plots in the book Jane Eyre.This detective fiction with distinct characteristics of autobiography tells a story that Jane Eyre investigates the mysterious death of a schoolgirl in a boarding school as an amateur detective.The preface and the first five chapters of this fiction are chosen as the translation material.The original author frequently uses ellipsis,which forms the important feature of the source text.The language is characterized by conciseness,terseness and expressiveness.Thus,to appropriately handle ellipsis for faithfully conveying the essence and linguistic features of the source text has become the key and difficult part of the whole translation from English to Chinese.This report takes elliptical phenomena in the preface and the first five chapters of the source text as the research objects and discusses the translation methods of ellipsis with the aid of typical examples under the guidance of relevance theory.Through the analysis of relevant examples,it can be concluded as follows: As the communication bridge between the original author and the target reader,the translator needs to shoulder the dual responsibility to achieve as much optimal relevance as possible.The translator should deduce the omitted information and comprehend the original author‘s intentions with her own cognitive environment.The retention,supplement and flexible treatment of ellipsis are adopted to help realize the optimal relevance between the source text and the translated text.Then the aesthetic feelings,conceptions and linguistic style of the original author can be conveyed to the target reader so as to achieve the successful communication between the original author and the target reader.