A Report On E-C Translation Of The Yellow House (Excerpts)

The source text of the translation practice is excerpted from the biography The Yellow House,which is written by Sarah M.Broom,a contemporary American writer.This biography follows the birth and disappearance of a yellow house and mainly talks about the stories of the author’s family living in the yellow house,showing the simplest and deepest love among family members.It also sheds light on the real life of American black people and the history of New Orleans East.The translator chooses IV,V,and VI of Movement Ⅰ of this biography as translation materials.This biography is a memoir that narrates different experiences of the author’s family members,neighbors and friends around the Wilson Avenue.It also conveys the author’s sincere feelings to her family,and expresses her hatred for social issues like racial discrimination through diverse artistic techniques and vivid words.During the process of translation practice,the translator has difficulties dealing with some culture-loaded words,terminologies and complex sentences in the source text.Besides,how to reproduce the style of the source text also becomes a key point.In view of these problems,the translator selects Functional Equivalence Theory of Eugene Nida as the guiding theory,which can help to convey the original meaning and reach equivalence of expression effect between the target text and the source text.In order to solve these problems,the translator decides to analyze the key and difficult points at the lexical,syntactic and stylistic levels and apply some translation skills,such as amplification,annotation,affirmation,adjustment of sentence order.Therefore the translator can work to achieve equivalence of communicative function between the target text and the source text.In biographical translation,the application of Functional Equivalence Theory requires that the translator put the target-language readers first and focus on their reading experiences.Meanwhile,excellent biographical translation not only reproduces the original messages and expression effect,but also makes both readers from target-language and source-language cultures generate similar reading response.In conclusion,the translator hopes that this report can help readers know the stories of the black family and human customs of New Orleans East and provide some reference and support for the translation of biographies in the future.