A Report On The Translation Of The Life And Times Of The Thunderbolt Kid

This is a translation report.The source text of the report is a novel called The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson,a best-selling American author.The practice is also a retranslation attempt.While conducting the practice,as well as this report,under the guidance of the translation model,strategies and procedures proposed by Vinay and Darbelnet,the author had also presented some thoughts on retranslation by discussing the difficulties encountered during the translation process.The report was written based on the full and complete translation of the whole novel and it is consisted of four chapters.Chapter One is Introduction,in which the author introduces the background of the project,briefly describes the project and states the structure of the report.Chapter Two is Description of Translation Process,in which the author presents the pre-translation preparation,the translation process and the after-translation management while stating the types of translation difficulties encountered and the translation strategies applied.The two translation methods applied,direct and oblique translation,was proposed by Vinay and Darbelnet.They were both proposed after careful comparisons made between English and French texts.Direct translation is used when words can be directly transferred from source language to target language,while oblique translation is applied when there are differences between source language and target language,and translators need to resort to this strategy to change certain elements in the target language.Chapter Three is Case Analysis,in which the author presents with cases from the project,how the practice was conducted and completed under the guidance of the two translation methods and the seven procedures,namely borrowing,calque,literal translation,transposition,modulation,equivalence and adaptation proposed by Vinay and Darbelnet.Chapter Four is Conclusion,in which the author summarizes the thoughts and understandings she had when translating the text and writing the report,along with the improvements and amendments that need future attention.By translating the text and finishing the report under the guidance of the strategies and procedures mentioned above,it is concluded,clearly and evidently,that translators should value pre-translation preparation,that combining translation techniques with practice is key in translation practice,and that one should never cease to learn and review basic knowledge of languages when translating and should choose translation strategies wisely based on a thorough and comprehensive understanding of translation theories.