Author(s)

Yining Huang ¹, Weilin Dou ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ Xianda College of Economics and Humanities Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, 200083, China 

Corresponding Author

Weilin Dou

ABSTRACT

This project reflects my translation of a literary work written by a famous physicist. The source text the translator chose to translate is the excerpt of "Surely You Are Joking, Mr. Feynman!" It is a special work that records Richard Feynman's exciting experiences in his whole life and exposes his positive and righteous personal qualities. Hopefully, this translation will do well for young teenage readers because of its meaningful content. Due to its expressive text type according to Peter Newmark's classification, the translator applied Newmark's theoretical framework to guide translation in this project. Hence, the semantic translation strategy will be the primary translation strategy, supplemented by the communicative translation strategy. Besides, other translation methods and skills will also be adopted to make the translation more accurate, acceptable, and readable and enrich its childishness, a prominent feature of the source text.  For the commentary part, the translator explained the decision-making process clearly and comprehensively during translation. She hoped that this translation would get different feedback and valuable suggestions.

KEYWORDS

Literary Translation; Semantic Translation; Communicative Translation; Childishness

CITE THIS PAPER

Yining Huang, Weilin Dou, A Report on Chinese Translation of "Surely You Are Joking, Mr. Feynman!" (Excerpt). Lecture Notes on Language and Literature (2025) Vol. 8: 77-86. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/langl.2025.080511.

REFERENCES

[1] Feynman, R. P., Leighton, R., & Hutchings, E. (1992) Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!: adventures of a curious character, London: Vintage Books.
[2] Newmark, P. (1981) Approaches to Translation, New York: Prentice Hall.
[3] Newmark, P. (1988) A Textbook of Translation, London: Prentice Hall.
[4] Nord, C. (2001) Translating as a Purposeful Activity, Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
[5] Feynman, R. P. (1985) Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!: adventures of a curious character (Trans. by C.Y. Wu), Beijing: SDX Joint Publishing Company. 
[6] Feynman, R. P. (1985) Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!: adventures of a curious character (Trans. by Z.Z. Wang), Hunan: Hunan Science and Technology Press. 
[7] Guo, J. Z. (1988) Cultural Factors in Translation: Foreignization and Domestication, in Journal of Foreign Languages 2,12-19.
[8] Lin, X. Q. (1987) Newmark on Communicative Translation and Semantic Translation, in Chinese Translators Journal 1,50-51. 
[9] Sun, Z. L. (2003) On the Strategies of Literary Translation Again, in Chinese Translators Journal 1,48-51.
[10] Wang, X. F. (2012) The Structure of English Long Sentences and Translation Methods, in Social Sciences Review 9,172-174.
[11] Xu, D. R. (2004) On the Translation of Children's Literature, in Chinese Translators Journal 6,33-36.
[12] Xu, D.R. & Jiang, Z.X. (2018) On the New Ideas for Redesigning the Translation Style of Children's Literature, in Chinese Translators Journal 1,97-103. 
[13] Yan, W. M. (1998) Discussing the Translation of Children's Literature Works - Some Notes on the New Translation of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", in Chinese Translators Journal 5,53-55.
[14] Yang, S. Z. (1989) Peter Newmark's Overview of New Concepts, in Chinese Translators Journal 1,48-50.
[15] Yang, S. Z. (1989) A Brief Analysis of Newmark's Semantic Translation and Communicative Translation Theories, in Foreign Language and Literature Studies Z2,68-71. 
[16] Zen, Z. H. (2010) The Application and Translation Techniques of Long Sentences in the Graduate Entrance Examination in English, in Journal of Chifeng University (Soc.Sci) 7,149-150.

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