A Report On The Translation Practice Of First Five Chapters Of The Doctor's Wife

This is the reflection of the author's translation experience.The source text of the translation project is the first five chapters of a popular novel named The Doctor's Wife,written by British writer Mary Elizabeth Braddon.There are about 24000 English words in the part.To finish the project satisfactorily,the author studies the source text The Doctor's Wife carefully,and realized the major difficulty is how to reproduce an entertaining popular novel in Chinese while still retaining those English cultural flavor and the author's individual linguistic beauty.In the process of the translation,Peter Newmark's theory of communicative translation and semantic translation is very conducive to deal with the difficulty.To achieve the entertaining function of the popular novel,communicative translation is adopted as the major solution to ensure that Chinese readers can enjoy the story as the readers to the original text do.To do so,five translation techniques have been adopted,namely,explicitation,adjustment of word order,amplification,adaptation and use of four-character phrases.On the other hand,the source text also carries some literary value with vivid expressions and well-chosen language forms since Mary Braddon made special effort to make it a serious literary work.To retain the charm of the language,semantic translation has also been used as a supplement where the language carries special aesthetic effects and the author's special individuality.With the integration of both communicative translation and semantic translation,the Chinese version has well realized the entertaining function of the fiction as a popular novel,but also preserved some of the original story's aesthetic value and Mary Elizabeth Braddon's personal style.