A Brief Study Of Translation Problems In Chapter One Of Loitering With Intent Based On Koller's Equivalence Theory

This thesis includes two parts: translation practice and translation commentary.The translation material is the Chapter One of Loitering with Intent,a partly autobiographical novel created by Muriel Spark,a famous British female writer.There are mainly three aspects of difficulties during the translation: how to deal with polysemy and vocabulary vacancies,how to understand long sentences and choose correct expressions,and whether to reproduce rhetorical devices in the source text.Aiming at these three aspects,Werner Koller's equivalence theory is employed to analyze the problems of vocabularies,language expressions,and rhetorical devices,and corresponding methods are summarized.In Koller's Einführung in die übersetzungswissenschaft,he discusses his equivalence theory in detail,dividing equivalence into five types: denotative equivalence,connotative equivalence,text-normative equivalence,pragmatic equivalence,and formal-aesthetic equivalence.Foreign research on Koller's translation theory remains at the theoretical level,and domestic research can be classified into three categories: theoretical review,translation commentary,and comparative analysis.Directing at the difficulties in translation practice,the author,based on Koller's equivalence theory,analyzes and discusses them in three aspects: denotative equivalence,connotative equivalence,and formal-aesthetic equivalence.Among these three aspects,denotative equivalence is centred on vocabularies and further divided into one-to-one,one-to-many,and one-to-zero,connotative equivalence is analyzed from text styles and dialogues of different characters,and formal-aesthetic equivalence is discussed from semantic and structural rhetoric devices.Combining with Koller's equivalence theory,the author summarizes corresponding translation methods for different examples in translation practice.From the perspective of denotative equivalence,the one-to-one situation mainly adoptsliteral translation,the one-to-many situation sometimes adopts free translation,and the one-to-zero situation mainly adopts literal translation with annotation to make up for the cultural vacancies.From the perspective of connotative equivalence,in consideration of the text styles and different characters,special attention should be paid to the choice of vocabulary and expression,and the consistency and variability of words.From the perspective of formal-aesthetic equivalence,reproduction of rhetorical devices of the source text is commonly required,while innovative approaches can be created according to the content or structural needs of the text.Koller's equivalence theory provides translators with various and multiple aspects to deal with difficulties in translation practice.Apart from its guiding function,however,Koller's theory has limitations especially in the priority of multiple equivalences.Therefore,translators are supposed to achieve a relative balance of various equivalences with flexible adaptations while in accordance with these principles of equivalence.