A Study Of Yuan Ren Chao's Experiment In Syntactic Structures In Translating Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

The thesis,taking the translation of restrictive attributive clauses as a case,makes an in-depth study on Zhao Yuanren's experiment in syntactic structures in translating Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.Experiment by professor Zhao could be interpreted as that in Vernacular.It,the New Vernacular Movement suggests,is a kind of written language in accordance with that on lips of people in terms of vocabulary,syntactic structure etc.However,vernacular in 1920 s is in three forms including classical vernacular,oral vernacular and Europeanized vernacular.The first one is confined with syntactic rules from classical Chinese;the second one is in line with oral Chinese;the last one is of Europeanized flavor.Translations formed in these three kinds of vernacular are manipulated by different translation strategies.Translation of restrictive attributive clauses varies from vernacular to vernacular.In classical and oral vernacular,restrictive attributive clauses are either translated into minor sentences or omitted.Seldom are they translated into lengthy attributives before the nouns;in Europeanized vernacular,most of these clauses are transformed into lengthy attributives before the primary noun with the juxtaposition of “adj+?”,and the original information is kept well.The specific translation skills operated in three types of vernacular receive elaborate analysis in texts exemplified by Zhou Shoujuan's translation of “The Sextons Hero” and “The Tapestried Chamber”,Xu Zhimo's translation of “The Garden-party”.They are representatives of translation in classical vernacular,oral vernacular and Europeanized vernacular respectively.Experiment in syntactic structures is carried out in Zhao Yuanren's version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,so as to improve translation by three kinds of vernacular above.The probe into translation methods utilized by professor Zhao indicates these clauses are either transformed into corresponding sentence pattern or converted syntactic structures.On one hand,19 clauses are transformed into attributives before the noun,but they are seldom swarmed with the structure “adj+?”.On the other hand,28 clauses are converted into other sentence patterns including various adverbial clauses,verb-object structure,existential sentence,exclamatory sentence etc.In this regard,original information is reproduced well in translated structures and attributive structures are not over-Europeanized.The thesis maintains that professor Zhao employs an experimental vernacular in translating restrictive attributive clauses of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.In this way,archaic syntactic structures in classical Chinese escape his vernacular;original information is fully delivered in his vernacular while some of it is ignored in classical and oral vernacular;it weakens influence on his vernacular from English syntactic rules.In conclusion,Zhao's translation,compared with Europeanized vernacular,is more conformable syntactic rules of oral vernacular;it is more faithful to original text in terms of information transmission in contrast with translated texts in classical and oral vernacular.