A Report On The Translation Of Where The Crawdads Sing(Excerpts)

This report is an analysis of the difficulties the author encountered in the translation of the excerpts of Where the Crawdads Sing.The American writer and zoologist Delia Owens,wove murder,survival,love and cheat into the natural beauty to relate the heroine’s lonely and legendary life.In this report,the author analyzed the stylistic markers of the source text before coming up with appropriate translation strategies to reproduce the style of the source text.More specifically,phonological markers,lexical markers,register markers and markers of the figures of speech are involved in this report.Firstly,the author analyzed the phonological markers of the source text.The source text chooses onomatopoeia words to make the static environment vivid,and uses rhythmical words to create a picturesque natural scene.The strategy is to find the equivalent of the original word to imitate the style of the source language.Secondly,the author analyzed the lexical markers.The source text tends to use the extending meaning of the common words or neologisms.The most appropriate meaning should be chosen according to the context;or recast the style of the source text when there’s no corresponding stylistic symbolic system or there’s need to recreate the style for communicative function and effect;while for some neologisms,the strategy is to deliver the exact meaning and reproduce the spirit by giving up the form of the source language when it is impossible to find equivalent words or expressions in the target language.Thirdly,the author analyzed the register markers.Many dialogues are used in this novel to advance the plot and to reveal the personalities of the characters.For this part,three aspects should be taken into consideration: namely field of discourse,tenor of discourse,and mode of discourse.The translation could be delivered by adopting the corresponding words and tones in accordance with different occasions or adding some modal particle words to express speakers’ tone.Finally,the author analyzed the markers of figures of speech.Lots of figures of speech are employed in the source text to describe the natural beauty and characters’ psychology.Since the source text and the target text have something in common in the figures of speech,we should adopt the literal translation as far as possible.