A Report On English-Chinese Translation Of Poor Miss Finch (Chapters 35-37)

This report is based on the English-Chinese translation of Chapters 35 to 37 of Poor Miss Finch,a masterpiece written by William Wilkie Collins,the father of British detective fiction.Poor Miss Finch tells the love story of a blind girl(Lucilla)with twin brothers(Oscar and Nugent),while Chapters 35 to 37 present a key episode,that is,Lucilla tried her sight and mistook Nugent(the brother of her lover)for Oscar(her true lover).From a functional perspective,the three chapters serve as a connecting link between the preceding and the following throughout the novel.In the process of translation,the current translator faced four major challenges.First,there are plenty of religious,medical and other terminologies in Poor Miss Finch.Second,as a classic sensation novel,Poor Miss Finch is featured with the integration of indigenous charisma and exotic atmosphere.Third,this novel is a literary work,presenting great literary significance and high aesthetic value with diverse deviations.Fourth,with the adoption of the first-person limited perspective,this work is characterized by the frequent appearance of colloquial descriptions varied greatly in the level of formality.In order to cope with these challenges,the current translator adopted various methods.First,as for religious and medical terminologies,the current translator adopted annotation in a way that helps the target text readers have a deeper understanding of the background information under those terminologies.Second,when it comes to the intended misspellings,the current translator used characters with close pronunciation,thus making the target text readers can also appreciate the same exotic atmosphere as the source text readers do.Third,with regard to the semantic and grammatical deviations in the source text,the current translator applied literal translation,so as to refrain the target text from deceptive equivalence while retaining the literary significance and aesthetic value of the source text.Fourth,for colloquial descriptions with diverse levels of formality,the current translator used different language styles,such as adding modal particles to casual conversations and using written language in epistolary communication.By doing so,the target text readers can easily grasp a lot of veiled information under those dialogues,such as the personality and status of the speaker,and the context and form of the dialogue.Thanks to this translation practice,the current translator,on the one hand,has a deeper understanding of the translation of sensation novels.On the other hand,the current translator also has been well informed with the significance of deviations in the source text and language appropriateness in the target text,thus shedding light on the translation practice in the following days.