A Report On E-C Translation Of The Biography The Music Room (Excerpts)

This translation report is based on the third chapter of the biography The Music Room,a bestseller published in 2009 by William Fiennes.With specific examples,and guided by Jauss’ Reception Aesthetics Theory,this report discusses how to consider readers’ horizon of expectation in the translation of The Music Room.The excerpted part mainly tells about the author’s childhood in the British castle,as well as the changes of his brother Richard’s disease.It involves a large number of people’s names,place names and medical knowledge,contains a large number of characters’ dialogue,and also uses rhetorical devices,such as parody,irony and metaphor.“Horizon of expectation” is the core concept of Reception Aesthetics Theory,which refers to readers’ appreciation requirement and level of appreciation for the texts based on previous experiences,tastes,qualities,ideals and other factors in literary reception activities.Therefore,in this translation practice,the translator has considered target readers’ horizon of expectation.The main part of this translation report analyzes the translator’s consideration of readers’ horizon of expectations from lexical,syntactic and rhetorical levels.Taking into account the readers’ cultural background and knowledge structure,the translator adopts methods such as substitution,annotation,and conversion when translating proper nouns and culturally-loaded words;taking into account the readers’ aesthetic experience and the Chinese way of expression,the translator employs methods such as inversion,amplification and splitting when translating short sentences and long sentences.When translating rhetorical device,the translator tries to reproduce the rhetorical effect of parody,irony and metaphor in the source text.Through this translation practice,the translator hopes to introduce the biography to more Chinese readers and provide some references for future translation studies.