A Report On The Translation Of BLOODS:An Oral History Of The Vietnam War By Black Veterans

Since 2018,the author has translated the first and third chapter of BLOODS:An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans.Wallace Terry,writer of this book,interviewed 20 African American veterans who had fought in the Vietnam War and compiled this book.Therefore,this book contains some African American vocabulary,phonological and grammatical features that are different from standard English.Due to the differences between English and Chinese,it is difficult for a translator to fully reproduce the features of African American English.However,in order to retain the charm of African American English,the author believes that translators should attach great importance to reproduction of the style of the original text.Based on the translation practice,the author illustrates his translating process from identifying African American English in the source text to overcoming difficulties in translating African American English with certain translation methods.In this report,the author emphasizes the importance of recognizing unique features of African American English before the source text is translated into Chinese.And then,the author shows the way to reflect the phonological features of African American English by making use of malapropism and a mixture of Chinese dialects.Meanwhile,it is pointed out that colloquial Chinese can be adopted to reflect the special rhythm or artistic effect of some sentences in African American English.Finally,the author reckons that specification,one of the compensation strategies,should be adopted to translate words with rich meanings.All of these methods have been concluded to cope with problems in AAE-Chinese translation and the author hopes that this report could inspire more translators who might have difficulties in translating English with AAE features.