C-E Translation Report On Stealing A Boot (Excerpt)-from The Eco-translatology Perspective

This is an English Chinese translation report on the excerpt of Stealing A Boot which is a short novel of the Chinese Intellectual Youth writer Liang Xiaosheng.It relates a story of a country girl Qian suffering from her secret love for the young and handsome opera player Dai from downtown.In terms of the source text,it employs plain and simple language;has profound cultural connotation and also some political words;and reflects the frankness and benignity of rural people.Based on these features of the source text from three aspects,Eco-translatology theory proposed by professor Hu Gengshen is adopted to guide the first English translation of Stealing A Boot.The translator sectioned the translation process by following the two phases in eco-translatology,i.e.,adaptation and selection.And some applicable translation methods are also concluded on three dimensions,aiming to provide a reference for English translation of intellectual youth novel in the future and make contribution to theory building.This translation report comprises five parts.The first task description part introduces the background,procedure,purposes and significance of the task.The second part is source text analysis that goes through the linguistic,cultural and communicative features of the source text.The third part details Eco-translatology and its feasibility.As the core of this report,part four exhibits the translator’s adaptation and selection in the translating process.To be specific,the translator first conducts adaptation to the eco-environment composed by the worlds of the source language and the target language and then conducts selection of appropriate translation methods on linguistic,cultural and communicative dimensions.During this process,some appropriate translation methods are generalized by the translator.On linguistic dimension,in adaptation to the massive verbs and adverbs in the source text,the translator selects to shift the word class;in adaptation to the overwhelming run-on sentences in the source text,reconstruction of sentences is chosen.On cultural dimension,adaptation to the English cultural vacant words leads to the employment of annotation;as for the political words,the translator uses paraphrase.On communicative dimension,in adaptation to the target readers’ smooth understanding,the translator opts to omit the repeated information;the writer’s positiveness and affirmation towards the simplicity and benignity of rural people against the background of Cultural Revolution causes the translator’s substitution of the colloquial local words with their corresponding ones;and in adaptation to the fervent emotion in the source text,the translator adds some appellations and emotional words.Part five summarizes the translator’s major findings,limitations and suggestions.