A Study On Translation Strategies Of Detective Novels From The Perspective Of Theme-rheme Theory

Detective novels are popular in worldwide for their fascinating plots and rigorous logical reasoning.Since the introduction of foreign detective novels at the end of Qing Dynasty,the research on the translation of detective novels also rises accordingly.Agatha Christie,who is a notable detective novelist,her representative work of And Then There Were None is well received by readers at home and abroad.The reason lies in the excellent translation.This paper analyzes its translation from the perspective of Theme-Rheme Theory,aims to verify its guiding role in English-Chinese translation of detective novels and explore the translation strategies from the perspective of the Theme-Rheme Theory.Theme-Rheme Theory,belonging to systemic-functional linguistics,mainly includes two aspects: thematic structure and thematic progression pattern.The theme refers to the starting point of information.It is the expression of known information;The rheme is an interpretation of the theme.It is the expression of new information.From the perspective of communicative function,any sentence constitutes a theme-rheme structure,that is,thematic structure.Similarly,information develops continuously in a discourse,and a thematic progression pattern is formed naturally.In short,Theme-Rheme Theory can help us to analyze the original text and construct the translation from the perspective of structure level,which provides a new direction for the development of translation studies.In this paper,by sorting out the Theme-Rheme Theory and its related research results,a comparative study is made on two Chinese versions of And Then There Were None: the early version of Qi Ahong and the latest version of Xia Yang.Through the comparison we found that: 1)Due to the requirements of thematic structure,translator is more inclined to use translation strategies in syntactic translation to ensure the integrity of thematic structure and the smooth expression of the reasoning,such as restoration,addition,rearrangement,conversion and splitting;2)Due to the requirement of the thematic progression pattern,the translator is more inclined to use translation strategies in the construction of the translation to ensure the textual coherence of the translation and the setting of clues and foreshadow,such as protrusion of topic theme and ellipsis of the redundant themes.