A Report On The Translation Of Arctic Chill (Chapter 21-30) From The Perspective Of Context

Translation of literature works,especially popular novels from different countries plays an important role in cross-cultural communication,and the development of international cultural market as well.This translation practice is based on a famous crime novel Arctic Chill,written by the famous Icelandic writer Arnaldur Indrieason.It was first published in 2005,with an English version coming out in 2008.This translation report is based on the translation task of the English version,entrusted by Xinhua Publishing House.The author of this thesis took part in this project in early 2016 undertaking a quarter of the whole novel(based on the number of words),from Chapter 21 to Chapter 30(30 chapters in total),and submitted the final draft(the 5th version)in the appointed time upon accomplishing the task in early 2017.Studies concerning context have gone through a long history.Guided by Systemic Functional Linguistics(henceforth SFL)and based on the context of situation and context of culture by Halliday(1985),this thesis elaborates the instructions and illuminations from three layers,namely co-context,the context of situation and context of culture to the specific problems in the process of translation.Moreover,the characteristics of literary translation are also considered,based on comprehensive understanding of the translation theory to interpret and solve the practical problems.According to the context theory in SFL,a text is a complex of the three metafunctions(namely the ideational function,the interpersonal function and the textual function).In the aspect of the lowest level co-context,we discussed the impact and improvement of co-context in translation choices when doing literary translation.The context of situation is the configuration of its three features: field,tenor,and mode.The thesis constructed a framework of the context of situation for literary works,applying it to the practical situations in terms of register variation.Context of culture is the origin of meaning and value of the text,backing it up with social background and culture.It determines the co-context and context of situation.How this notion has brought impacts on decision-making in translating literary works is also exemplified.Different versions with distinct features are compared and analyzed to verify the practical guidance of the context theory in improving the translation of those chapters.What is more,this thesis proposes some suggestions to solve the problems in this translation project,and translation strategies and implications are put forward as well.