A Project Report On The Translation Of 1922:the World Broke In Two(From Introduction To Chapter 1)

With the development of globalization and the progress of China's comprehensive national strength,the cultural communication between China and the rest of the world becomes more and more frequent.Under this context of situation,foreign literary works attract the attention of more and more Chinese readers,among which the biography of famous foreign writers is one of their favorites owing to its authenticity and literariness.The present report is based on a Chinese translation of an English biography,that is,1922:The World Broke in Two published by Bloomsbury in 2018,and the translator selects the Introduction and Chapter 1 of the literary biography for further analyses.The original author of the English biography,Bill Goldstein from the United States,introduces the background information of English literature around 1922 and how trivial matters influence the writing style of Virginia Woolf utilizing a natural style with plain words.The translator adopts Peter Newmark's semantic translation and communicative translation theory as its theoretical framework to solve three difficulties in the translation project:rhetorical devices,alternation of short and long sentences and the unique style of biographies.In the meantime,translation techniques like amplification,omission and conversion are also adopted for the clarification of overcoming these difficulties.Firstly,as for the translation of rhetorical devices,the same figures of speech,replacement or annotation are adopted by the translator.Secondly,in terms of alternation of short and long sentences,retaining the original structural and linguistic features,adjusting the sentence order and deleting information are necessary.Finally,in order to keep the unique style of biographies,the translator looks through the whole text,grasps the writing style of the original author,and then reads parallel texts for reference before eventually conveying the original style adequately.This project aims to tentatively offer some solutions to problems concerning the translation of biographies,while hoping to provide more historical evidence for Chinese researchers interested in the study of Virginia Woolf and her literary achievements.The significance of the project is to covey the literariness and authenticity of the source text in the target culture.Its natural writing style with plain words recaptures the life of Virginia Woolf as a writer,sure to be enjoyed by more readers.Meanwhile,it provides reliable historical facts for studies of Virginia Woolf,other contemporaneous writers as well as their social background.