A Report On Translating After Story (Excerpts) From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence

With the advent of various network translation tools,the translation process is gradually shifting from pure manual translation to computer-aided translation.At the same time,with the emergence of various network translation tools,the translation process is gradually shifting from pure manual translation to computer-aided translation.The application of post-editing in translation practice is also expanding.It plays an important role in the improvement of translation efficiency and quality in non-literary translation,which requires more standardization and coherence.In contrast,there is still a lack of post-editing experience in literary translation,which tends to be creative and literary.This translation report is based on my own translation experience of the English book After Story.This project applies the working mode of machine translation plus post-editing to literary text translation,which is rarely involved in machine translation.Guided by Nida’s functional equivalence theory,this project analyzes the translation process and summarizes the translation experience for future practice.In contrast to formal equivalence that emphasizes ST forms rather than effects,functional equivalence depends on achieving equivalent effect,which has four basic requirements that should be achieved simultaneously: making sense;conveying the spirit and manner of the original;having a natural and easy form of expression;producing a similar response.For literary translation,literariness and artist effects should be represented by transcending formal equivalence and realizing functional equivalence.Through practice and summary,and with the help of Jacobson’s translation typology,the translator has found that the process from machine translation to post-editing help move the text from formal to functional equivalence,and three phases are roughly involved: interlingual,inter-intralingual,and intralingual translation.The whole process of MTPE requires translators to conduct careful analysis and comparison and apply different skills to produce a satisfying version.Through case analysis,this paper summarizes the techniques of post-editing,borrowed from translation techniques,to improve the MT to achieve functional equivalence,including conversion,amplification,omission,inversion,and repetition.The report also summarizes machine translation errors at lexical,syntactic,and textual levels.The techniques and experience outlined in this report may have guiding and reference value for the future analysis of relevant post-editing texts and the practice of similar translation projects.Based on my reflection on this project,machine translation still needs the intervention of human translators to produce an appropriate translation.Especially for literary texts,translators,as human beings,play an important role as gatekeepers in the whole process,in which the most important value is embodied in the process of upgrading the formal equivalence of machine translation symbols to functional equivalence.At the same time,special attention should be paid to the linguistic features of literary works,which may be mistranslated by machines.The techniques and experience summarized in this paper are of guiding and reference value for future analysis of post-editing texts and the practice of similar translation projects.