A Report On The Translation Of Milkman(Excerpt)

This is a report on the translation of Milkman written by Anna Burns,a Northern Ireland writer.The language of this novel is particularly exquisite,accurate and rambling,and simple words with rich connotation are often used.In the context of “The Troulbles”(Northern Ireland stays in the UK or returns to Ireland),the writer tells the story in the first person about the heroine who is followed and accosted by a married milkman,and then is troubled by the gossip,finally compromises to the milkman in the social environment which fills with violence and distrust.The novel reflects the young women's doubts about identity and love and points out directly sexual assault and resistance.The source text of this translation report is excerpted from Chapter One and Chapter Two.The translator decided to adopt Gideon Toury's descriptive translation theory to guide the translation based on the content and language style of Milkman.The theory focuses on the target language and describes the process of translation objectively from a macro perspective.The core of this theory is the translation norms theory,including initial norms,preliminary norms and operational norms,which will run through the whole process of translation practice.In addition,Toury emphasizes the translator's subjectivity since norms work by translators.However,translators are influenced by their own language habits,social culture and other factors,so the translation norms they chosen will be different.Many difficulties encountered should be dealt with during translating and the concept of “proper contextualization” proposed by Toury can provide help for translators to understand the original texts and solve difficulties properly.The translation report consists of four parts: the first part is an introduction of this translation project,including the source,introduction and significance of the translation work.The second part presents the translation process which comprises pre-translation preparation,text translation and post-translation proofreading.The third part is to analyze the translated texts by the descriptive translation theory from the perspective of title,vocabulary,sentence and style.The fourth part is a summary of the translation practice and the author shares the gains of the translation practice which are interested in future translation work.