On Translation Choices For Foregrounding Elements Of Literary Works

Chinese culture going abroad relies on Chinese literature going out.The foregrounding elements of a literary work are an important source of its literariness.Thus,it is not reasonable or at least not comprehensive,to discuss the translation of a literary work while ignoring its foregrounding elements.The important prerequisite for the success of the translation of a literary work is that whether or not the translator has noticed the foregrounding factors in the work and their important stylistic role in the textual context and how he or she deals with them.In the literary circle,the foregrounding elements have been explored by a large number of scholars.While,in the translation circle,a fewer studies have explored their translation,focusing mainly on deviations translation in literary translation,foregrounding in translation criticism,and its equivalent translation,etc.Therefore,it becomes the task of this thesis to explore the translation of the foregrounding elements of literary texts.Based on the text of the Luotuo Xiangzi,this thesis studies the translation of foregrounding elements in this text.Taking the comparative analysis method,case study method and inductive summary method,this thesis focuses on how to translate foregrounding elements to retain the literariness of the original text.With the guidance of the foregrounding theory,this thesis makes a comparative study on the foregrounding elements of Howard Goldblatt’s and Shi Xiaojing’s versions of the Luotuo Xiangzi in the following aspects: phonological deviation,lexical deviation,sentence deviation,pragmatic deviation and discourse deviation.The thesis finds that: Firstly,only when the translator pays sufficient attention to the foregrounding deviation and conveys it accurately can the literariness of the corresponding text be fully conveyed;Secondly,if the translator does not convey the foregrounding deviation properly or does not pay attention to the corresponding foregrounding deviation,the literariness of the original text will be compromised;Thirdly,there are also a few exceptional cases in which the translator is aware of the phenomenon of foregrounding without conveying the deviation but not affecting the meaning of the text and in some cases the translators do choose to not keep the deviation to enhance the readability of the translation.According to the studies on translations of literary works,it is true that a thousand translators may create a thousand Hamlets.Good translations stand out for they retain the literariness of the original text,i.e.those texts that maintain phonological deviations,lexical deviations,sentence deviations,pragmatic deviations and discourse deviations of the original.Meanwhile,by the criterion of retaining literariness,those which do not retain these deviations of the original text faithfully are not considered good translations.This thesis introduces foregrounding theory into the comparative study of the translation effects.And in terms of phonological deviations,lexical deviations,sentence deviations,pragmatic deviations and discourse deviations providing,the thesis provides a new way of thinking which could systematically and objectively assess the translations effects of literary works.At the same time,when translating literary texts,translators,with the help of the findings in this thesis,may be more sensitive to the various deviations of the original text and their irreplaceable role in the original context and retain them in their translations.Hence the literariness of the original texts can be replicated as far as possible.Of course,the conclusions of this thesis are only valid under the perspective of foregrounding theory,without which the above conclusions would not be valid,and that is the limitation of the above conclusions.Furthermore,the English versions of the Luotuo Xiangzi are not fully considered,with only Goldblatt’s and Shi’s versions,which also limits the conclusions of this thesis and broadens the feasibility for future research in this area.