Reproduction Of The Exile Motif In The English Version Of Taipei Jen

Widely acclaimed as a classic of contemporary fiction in Chinese, Taipei jen, written by the renowned Taiwan writer Pai Hsien-yung, has won a large following in the Chinese communities all over the world. Its English rendition, translated by the author himself and Patia Yasin, and edited by George Kao, was first published in USA in 1982. Eighteen years later its bilingual edition appeared in Hong Kong with a slight revision to the first edition. The publication of the English version of Taipei jen is regarded as a great event in the translation history of Taiwan literature. Over the past twenty three years since the first publication of the English edition of Taipei jen, the book has lost none of its power to move in English. However, it has so far drawn few people's attention in the translation circle both at home and abroad and no one has made a systematic study of the English version of Taipei jen.Comprising fourteen short stories, Taipei jen is connected by a recurring theme, the exile motif. This theme occupies an important position in Taiwan literature in general and in this fiction in particular. Whether this exile motif is properly reproduced in English is the decisive factor in the assessment of the successful translation of the classic work. The present thesis makes an attempt to study the reproduction of the exile motif in the English version of Taipei jen based on the theory of literary stylistics, with Chinese and English mental cultural similarities and dissimilarities taken into consideration.In a literary work, the theme and the style are closely tied up and cannot be divorced from each other, for the theme is the core of meaning and the style should echo and illustrate the theme. As a discipline mediating between linguistics and literary criticism, literary stylistics explores the relevancy between linguistic features and their resultant thematic meanings and aesthetic values. It is of great significance to introduce literary stylistics into fictional translation, for it can not only operate to enhance the translator's stylistic competence and help him achievefunctional equivalence in fictional translation, but also function to enhance the translation critic's stylistic awareness and keep him alert to the cases of "deceptive equivalence" in fictional translation.In Taipei jen, the theme of exile, incorporated with nostalgia, displacement of time and space and loss of identity, is mainly presented by four prominent stylistic features, namely, the narrative point of view, the speech presentation, the symbolic pattern and the nostalgic tone. In this thesis, the discussion of theme reproduction is combined with the evaluation of style transfer. The focus is put on the reproduction of the thematic significance presented by the above mentioned stylistic features in the original. With regard to the transference of the narrative point of view in the English version of Taipei jen, this thesis is mainly devoted to the transference of the figural point of view and of the onlooker's point of view. As for the translation of the speech presentation, it involves the evaluation of the translators' treatment of idiolects and regional dialects in Taipei jen. In terms of the reproduction of the symbolic pattern, the thesis deals with the translation of titles, characters' names and other symbols respectively. With respect of the conveyance of the nostalgic tone, the paper discusses how the translators strive to fully transplant the nostalgic emotions and feelings infused in Taipei jen.Through the detailed analysis, the thesis reveals that in translating Taipei jen, the translators are fully aware of the thematic and aesthetic effects generated by the four stylistic features in the original and flexible in their endeavor to transmit these effects in English. On the whole, the English version of Taipei jen is successful in properly reproducing the original theme of exile and conveying the original spirit. The present case study has demonstrated that theme reproduction and style transfer should be organically combined in literary translation practice. It also provides sufficient evidence of the importance of tone conveyance in fictional translation which does not receive due attention from and has often been neglected by fiction translators and translation critics. What's more, the mode of teamwork translation of Taipei jen is a valuable attempt and offers sound experience to the translation of...