Literary Stylistics: Translation Of The Style In Stream-of-Consciousness Fiction

Translation of style has always been a hot topic in literary translation. Those famous translators at home and abroad have made remarkable comments on the criteria of translating style and how to translate style in literature. However, besides the impressive comments in traditional study, there is no objective criteria nor systematic study over it.Literary Stylistics, as an intermediary discipline between linguistic and literary critics, has been introduced to handle translation of style in a more systematic and practical way. The problem is that most studies in the application of Stylistics into translation of style have been concerned with peoms rather than fictions. The stylistician, Shen Dan has applied literary Stylistics into translation of fiction in Literary Stylistics and fictional Translation (1998), which is insightful for the translation of literary style.Stream-of-consciousness fiction is known for its style, which has exerted significant influence on literary creation since its appearance. Many scholars have spent great effort in investigating the style in Ulysses. However, there is few research focusing on translation of the style in this genre in general nor in any work of this genre in particular. The dissertaion applies literary Stylistics into translation of the style in this genre, intending to arouse interest and cast light on this issue.In the first half of the thesis, main attention is focused on theoretical foundation. Three important terms of Stylistics, such as deviation, prominence and foregrounding are introduced. To settle the controvercial nature of style, it is defined in two perspectives. In a broad sense or macro-perspective, it is an integrity of content and form, which is proved to be workable in discussion the style in this genre in general. In a narrow or micro-perspective, it is taken as thematically or aesthetically motivated formal features, which is proved to be efficient in discussing translation of the style in A Portrait.It would be incomplete if we discussed translation of style without mentioning the translatability of it. In the thesis, we hold that the style in stream-of-consciousness fiction is partially translatable. Based on which, maximum closeness to the original style is tentatively proposed as an ideal principle. Several translation strategies have been introduced to achieve this ideal aim.Following Short's model of analysis, main attention has been paid to the appreciation of deviant stylistic features in stream-of-consciousness fiction in general and in A Portrait in particular. It is easy to detect "deceptive equivalence" in translated versions under the guidance of literary Stylistics. A comparative study on translation of the style in A Portrait has also verified the partial translatability of the style in this genre. While corresponding strategy and annoatation strategy have been proved to be efficient in preserving stylistic significance and achieving maximum closeness to the original style in this genre.