Translation Of Linguistic Deviation-A Report On Translating Beyond Tuesday Morning(Excerpts)

This is the report on the translation of Beyond Tuesday Morning,which is written by Karen Kingsbury,an American writer.The translator chooses the first four chapters of the book to translate.Based on the translation,the translator identifies the linguistic deviation of the source text and explores its translation strategies.This book is the hope-filled sequel to the bestselling One Tuesday Morning.It tells an inspiring story of getting on with life when losing someone you love more than life after the 9·11 terrorist attack.After carefully studying the source text,the translator finds linguistic deviation at different levels is widely used throughout the book.Linguistic deviation is a variation that deviates from the standard or norm,marking a particular style of an author.In literature,the act of communication becomes secondary while the primary focus of the reader is on the style.In order to have a better understanding of the original text,the translator analyzes the linguistic deviation including both surface-structure deviation at the levels of graphology,phonology,and syntactics and deep-structure deviation including metaphor and deception,and sentence fragments.After knowing the purpose of the deviation made by the author,the translator chooses different methods of translation and gives some examples as well.In the translator's view,the methods of translating linguistic deviation can be divided into three: First,if deviation at some level can be found in the original text,deviation at this level can be reproduced in the target language directly.For example,all the words that Jamie prays to the God are italic in English.When translating this graphological deviation,we can just use Chinese characters in bold type to reproduce the deviation,which presents Jamie's scared faith in God.Second,if deviation at some level in the original text cannot be reproduced in the target language,deviation at other levels can be chosen to replace it in the target language.For example,in the letter from Sierra to her father,pronunciation of many words are wrong.But Chinese,as a hieroglyphic language,is not composed of letters.Thus,it is difficult to reproduce the phonological deviation in Chinese.So deviation at other levels may be considered by the translator,such as syntactical deviation.Through the illogical speech with wrong grammar,the fact that Sierra's letter is full of love for her father although she is too young to know many words can be highlighted.Third,using the normal language in the target language without reproducing linguistic deviation.This method may not be adopted in most cases since it impedes the reproduction of original text and delivery of the author's intention.However,when there are too many fragments in the source language and when the important information has already been emphasized before the fragments,normal sentences can be used in the translation to avoid being wordy.Since linguistic deviation is one of the striking characteristics of the literary language,it is of vital importance for translators not only to understand source texts but also to have better translation that conveys both the author's intention and the highlighted information,presenting the writing style of the author.