About Aesthetic Choice In Literary Translation

The study of literary translation has been a topic of much interest for scholars at home and abroad over the past several decades.There are many research methods and perspectives,ranging from semantics and pragmatics to text analysis,and from the cultural perspective to the sociological perspective.The closely related studies vary from text analysis to the analysis of social phenomena generated by texts,from micro-studies such as words,sentences,and texts to the exploration of translators' ethics and responsibilities.Therefore,the study of literary translation,particularly from the aesthetic perspective,has become increasingly popular among researchers in China.Translation aesthetics is a branch and discipline of translation studies with its own unique research objects and methods.It is not a mere combination of translatology and aesthetics,but the aesthetic perspective of translatology;that is,aesthetics is the methodology of transdisciplinary exploration.In the past three decades,the rise of translation aesthetics has made the quality of literary translation possible.In other words,translation aesthetics has enriched research perspectives of literary translation and verified the essential attributes of literary translation.The multi-perspective study of literary translation has more or less advanced translation aesthetics as well.Aesthetic choice in literary translation refers mainly to the aesthetic choice behavior of translators in the process of translation.The research includes the nature of literary translation,the factors that influence the translator's aesthetic choice,the aesthetic principles that translators follow,the formulated translation strategies,the translator's aesthetic orientation in choice of the target language.This thesis focuses mainly upon the problems in the study of literary translation from the aesthetic perspective by using descriptive and prescriptive research methods.It concentrates largely on factors influencing the choice of the books to be translated,the formulation of translation principles,the choice of translation strategies and the choice of the target language at the lexical and syntactical levels.It has undertaken to make a case analysis to verify the applicability of the translation principles and translation strategies formulated in this thesis.The thesis includes three parts: theoretical discussion,case analysis and conclusions.To this end,it attempts to answer the following three research questions:(1)What is the relationship between literary translation and aesthetic choice? Does the aesthetic choice of translation mean the optimization of translation?(2)What are the principles of aesthetic choice in literary translation? Are these principles inevitable or optional?(3)What are the factors that influence the aesthetic choice in literary translation? How does the translator's philosophy of translation influence his/her translation and his/ her translation strategies? Does the translator have some personal preference in the choice of the target language?In order to answer the above questions and trace the translators' choice in the translation process,the three Chinese translations of Pride and Prejudice are chosen to analyze the translators' motivations,environment,principles,and strategies,etc.,at the lexical,syntactic,textual and stylistic levels by using by using a classic structure,dramatic structures and three-part structures,dialogue and epistle as examples.Through theoretical discussion and case analysis,this thesis draws the following conclusion:(1)Literary translation is a creative aesthetic activity,in which the translation involves many elements: language composition,cultural influence,aesthetic orientation,criteria for evaluation,values,etc.These elemants constitute a dynamic aesthetic ecosystem of literary translation.The value of literary translation can be judged by the unity of beauty and truth.This study explains the propositions related to aesthetic choice in traditional Chinese translation studies,such as the dynamic study of “Ya” and the translator's aesthetic choice(lexical items,structures);the process of translating is the process of translator's aesthetic choice.The translator not only reproduces the aesthetic quality of the original,but also creates the aesthetic value of the translation.Literary translation is the endproduct of the translator's aesthetic choice.(2)It clarifies three pairs of propositions in terms of the nature of literary translation from the aesthetic perspective,namely,the internal logic of “word and meaning”,“form and spirit” and “sameness and difference”.The propositions are both independent and interrelated.The propositions of “word and meaning” and “form and spirit” are theoretically embodied in the aesthetic orientation.In fact,the unity of word and meaning,the unity of form and spirit,and the preservation of exotic flavor requires adherence to the standard of beauty and truth.(3)It explores the external and internal factors influencing aesthetic choice,and reformulates three aesthetic principles of literary translation and four micro-aesthetic operational principles.The aesthetic choice is not only influenced by the social context in which the translator lives,namely,the external environment such as ideology,mainstream poetics,and readers,but also influenced by the internal environment such as the translator's translation philosophy and aesthetic orientation.It reformulates three macro principles as well as four operational aesthetic principles of literary transation,which include appropriacy,accuracy,economy and imagery(4Y Principles for short),particularly for the translation of novels.(4)Through case analysis,it holds that the translators have formulated their own views on translation.The translators have a common tendency in the choice of lexical items and syntactic structures: using some optimized lexical items and phrases to preserve the maximal aesthetic quality of the original.In order to convey the semantic information of the original text as much as possible,the translators employ such strategies as division and syntactical rearrangement if possible.The translators choose many four-character phrases to reproduce the original aesthetic elements in the translated texts,which produces a different appeal to the target readers,and retain the original flavor by using normalized lexical items and structures.In short,the translators choose most appropriate words to put in most appropirate order in translation.