A Report On The E-C Translation Of Napoleon Never Slept (Chapter Three)

Based on the English-Chinese translation of Chapter Three of Napoleon Never Slept,this translation report analyzes typical cases of mistranslation in terms of Li Changshuan’s analytical framework of “comprehension,expression and adaptation” and puts forward corresponding strategies and solutions by comparing the author’s initial translation with the modified translation.The author encountered some typical problems during translation.In comprehension,the author failed to consider the linguistic context and cultural context,thus leading to mistranslation.In expression,the key problems included translationese,improper use of words,sentence redundancy,and long-winded expression.In adaptation,the author was excessively faithful to the form of source text and failed to make some changes,thus leading to the translation with relatively low readability.Through the comparative study,the author has found that it is helpful for translators to improve the quality of translation if we translate according to the three steps of“comprehension,expression and adaptation”.In comprehension,translators should comprehend a word within the collocation,the sentence,the paragraph,and even the whole discourse where it locates.Meanwhile,language is closely connected with culture.So translators should also consider the cultural background and cross-cultural knowledge.In expression,translators need to emphasize idiomatic collocation and reorganize sentences according to the idiomaticity of Chinese to avoid translationese.Besides,translators can use more short sentences to avoid sentence redundancy.Moreover,translators should figure out writers’ intention and choose words with the same emotional coloring as the source text.Translators can use more four-character structures and use punctuation properly to avoid long-winded expression.In addition,translators can improve the readability of the translation from three aspects while considering adaptation: 1)translating the referents of pronouns;2)supplementing persons as subjects;3)adopting the translation strategies of addition and omission.The translation problems and methods presented in this report may provide some reference and guidance for the translation of other books about sociology.The analytical framework of this report may also provide some reference for other translation studies.