A Report On C-E Translation Of Submarine After The Night Falls(Excerpts):Difficulties In Reproducing Ideorealm In Fiction Translation And Corresponding Tactics

This report is based on the simulated C-E translation project of the fiction Submarine After the Night Falls(excerpts),a story collection by Chen Chuncheng,a young talented Chinese writer.The fiction is composed of nine separate short stories,in which Chen gives free rein to his creative imagination and brilliant writing capability.It is a highly rated best-seller and helps Chen to receive many awards.The author selects two stories totaling about 10,500 Chinese characters for the translation project and completes this translation report after much analysis.In this fiction especially in these two selected stories,Chen employs a prose-oriented writing manner,creating a dreamlike artistic taste featured by ideorealm.Ideorealm is an important literary concept in Chinese literature and aesthetics.It consists of three major constituents: images,emotions and images beyond images.To reproduce these constituents of ideorealm poses many difficulties to the author.Translation aesthetics,a translation theory originating in China,refers to the aesthetic model of translation and studies translation in an aesthetic way.In modern times,a Chinese scholar Liu Miqing has made great contributions to this theory.According to him,translation aesthetics,based on language and aesthetics,discusses over the beauty of language in translation,and aims to achieve “aesthetic representation” with both meaning and feeling conveyed.Under the guidance of Liu’s theory,this report proposes the following tactics for reproducing ideorealm in the translation of this fiction.(1)When transferring images of ideorealm,replace the original image by another with a similar or equivalent trait in Western culture,or paraphrase the original image in the absence of any corresponding similar image.(2)For the representation of emotions,add the subject for the subjectless sentence featured by fuzziness,and supplement the image or the emotion if they are absent for the sake of blank-leaving in the original.(3)In order to reproduce lively images beyond images with the spirit and tone conveyed,flexibly adopt inflections of English to enhance the dynamic beautifulness of the English text combined with the static beauty,and innovatively modulate the original images of metaphor based on imitation.From this translation project,the author has got a deep understanding of ideorealm in Chinese fiction,improved skills of applying translation theories to guide translation.With the help of the above tactics,the author has effectively reproduced ideorealm in the translation project.By this report,the author also expects to provide useful reference for other translators and translation of similar texts.