A Report On The English-Chinese Translation Of Half Girlfriend(Excerpts)-Guided By Reader Response Theory

Translation is a high-level language art,which refers to the language conversion of translating language information into one or more language information on the basis of accuracy.In recent years,with the development of China,the economy,politics,science and technology of China have enjoyed increasingly close to foreign world,and the status of non-literary translation has also increased with it,but the development of literary translation is relatively slow.According to the author’s translation experience,compared with non-literary translation,literary translation is more difficult,demanding more on the translator’s language skills and literary accomplishment.At the end of the 1960s,the reader-centered reader-response theory came into being.It is a new theoretical leap in Western literary criticism.The first to introduce reader-response theory into translation and practice is Eugene Nida,an American translator.Nida believes that the utility of the translation depends on whether the target reader can have roughly the same reflection as the source reader.Translators should focus on target readers when translating,taking into account the response and acceptability of the target readers.Nida emphasizes that translation should serve the target reader or the recipient of the target language.Therefore,the evaluation of the quality of a translation must reflect the response to the translation,and compare this reaction with the response of the source reader when reading the original text.This translation project comes from Chetan Bhagat’s novel Half Girlfriend,which analyzes the difficulties and solutions in the translation of English novels under the guidance of reader response theory.Half Girlfriend has a simple style,a portrayal of characters,and a rich dialogue of characters.In order to make Chinese readers who lack English proficiency or do not understand English at all have the same or similar reading experience as English readers,the author uses different methods under the guidance of reader-response theory:first,the author tries to understand the original text according to the context.When there is no content related to culture,the author prefers to use the more familiar expression of Chinese readers.Second,when dealing with the psychological description of characters and the dialogue between characters,try to avoid duplication and to conform to context.After combing the overall of translation report,the author draws the following conclusions:As a bridge between different cultures,translators must first clarify the target audience and make corresponding translations,so that the target readers can get a good reading experience.The author hopes that through her own translation analysis,it will attract more translators’ attention and attention to literary translation,and contribute to the development of literary translation in the future.