A Report On The Translation Of Wish Lanterns:Young Lives In New China（Excerpts）

This report is based on the translation of a book titled Wish Lanterns: Young Lives in New China,which is written by the British author Alec Ash.Wish Lanterns is Alec Ash’s first book.It falls into the category of biographic literature and targets six young Chinese people born between 1985 and 1990.This generation is the only child of their own family.They are eager to succeed,but also face fierce competition.Their journey to pursue their dreams has not been easy,but their stories are the same as that of young people everywhere.Biographical literature is a literary genre that uses a variety of literary and artistic techniques other than fiction to reproduce the life experiences and deeds of the characters,to show the spiritual outlook of the characters,and to depict their distinct images and vivid personalities.It has the characteristics of authenticity,literature and epochal character.The first part of five characters’ growing stories is the source text of the translation practice,and in total,there are 9423 English words in the chosen source text as well as 16220 Chinese characters in the translated version.Based on the analysis of the features of the source text,the translator chose the context theory to guide the translation practice.Different translation strategies and techniques such as free translation and amplification were adopted in the translation.In this report,the translator analyzed the translation cases from three main levels:linguistic context,situational context as well as cultural context.This translation practice aimed at providing an opportunity for target readers to learn the important era from a foreigner’s viewpoint,reproducing the style of the original text and make the translated version of the source text accepted by readers,and providing other translators useful and meaningful translation strategies and techniques for translating similar texts.