A Contrastive Study On Narrative Reconstruction Of The English Translations Of Lu Xun's Stories By Yang Xianyi And William A.Lyell

Lu Xun is the founder of modern Chinese literature and a world-famous Chinese writer whose works,especially his stories,have been translated into dozens of foreign languages.The English translation of Lu Xun's stories began in the 1920 s.So far,nearly 20 translators have got their English translations of Lu Xun's stories published,which constitute an important part for the dissemination of Lu Xun's stories in foreign countries,and have aroused great concern of academic studies.Although great progress has been made in the studies of this field,the narrative structure of the English translations of these stories,especially the narrative reconstruction strategies adopted by the translators,have not been giv en enough consideration.It is the important factor that helps to judge whether the stories have been translated successfully because the narrative reconstruction of the translated stories plays an important role in the dissemination and reception of them in the target cultures.In view of this,th e present research applies narratology to make a contrastive analysis on the narrative reconstruction strategies that Yang Xianyi and William A.Lyell adopted in their translations of Lu Xun's stories respectively.Narratology has gone through two phases — classical narratology and postclassical narratology.Classical narratology,aiming at revealing the universal narrative rule of the text,focuses on the text structure of narrative literary works and the internal relations among its narrative elements.Postclassical narratology,on the other hand,pays more attention to the social and historical context and the relationship between the reader and the internal structure of the narrative,thus leading the traditional study on the text to expand to the study on the context.This dissertation attempts to have an integrated application of classical narratolog y and postclassical narratology to study the narrative reconstructio n strategies in the English translation of Lu Xun's stories by Yang Xian and William A.Lyell.For this purpose,a narrative analysis model for translations is propose d first,with the intention of.analyzing the narrative strategies of translated texts through an integrative use of the classical and postclassical narratology.That is,by integrating the two approaches,the analysis should include the narrative reconstruction both at the textual and extratextual levels.As for the former,not only the elemen ts in the narrative progression and the distance between them,but also the narrative representation of a translated text from the narrative point of view,narrator's discourse,character's discourse,as well as the image of the implied translator and the implied author should be considered.As for the latter,it is necessary to analyze both the constraints and the narrative reconstruction strategies of the translated texts.These reconstruction strategies,often related to the constraints that have an impa ct on the translation,are mainly embodied in four aspects: temporal and spatial reconstruction,the selective appropriation of textual material,the repositioning of participants,and the reconstruction of labelling.Only by combining the textual and extratextual levels to analyze the translated narratives,can the narrative rule of translated works be fully revealed.Then,the author applies this model to co ntrast Yang's and Lyell's translations,trying to find their differences in the narrative reconstr uction in their translations.At the level of textual structure,the different narrative reconstruction strategies of the two translations are mainly shown in three aspects.First,they have different ways to reproduce the narrator's discourse in the original work.Yang's version tends to weaken the ironic effect caused by the contrast between wen yan and bai hua,and to retain the original way of giving the implicit information,and keep to the tense used by the original narrative;while Lyell's translation tends to highlight the ironic effect of the contrast between wen yan and bai hua,make clear the implicit information of the original text,and deviate from the narrative tense of the original text in some cases.Secondly,there are different ways to reproduce the characters' discourse in the original.Yang's translation tends to highlight the narrators' subject consciousness and weakens to some extent the thematic meaning conveyed by the forms of discourse of the original.Lyell's translation,instead,gives prominence to the characters' subject consciousness and tries to represent the themantic meaning conveyed in the form of the original discourse.Thirdly,they have different ways of reproducing the relationship between the narrative point of view and narrative distance of the original.Due to the deviation of Yang's representation of the changes in narrative point of view in some paragraphs in the original work,the narrative distance of the original work is changed to some extent.However,Lyell's translation pays more attention to represent these changes in narrative point of view in the original work,changes of the narrative distance are mainly caused by adding the second person or other expressions addressing the readers.As for the extratextual level,the differences in narrative reconstruction between these two translations mainly lie in four aspects.I n terms of the target of temporal and spatial reconstruction,Yang's translation tends to be oriented by the original text,while Lyell's tends to be oriented by the receptors' context.In the selective appropriation of text material,Yang's translation is mainly dominated by the state institutions,while Lyell's led by his personal interests.In terms of the repositioning of participants,Yang's translation demonstrates inadequate repositioning with few paratexts,while Lyell's repositioning of the narrative is mainly made by abundant and diversified paratexts,showing the translator 's mediating role.The difference in reconstruction of labelling is mainly shown in the translating the titles of these stories and the collections.In this respect,Yang tends to guide readers to construct the image of the author and the narrator by adding the understanding of the translator,while Lyell tends to reproduce the meaning of the original title instead of guiding readers with the translator's interpretation.Applying both classical and postclassical narratology to the analysis of the narrative reconstruction at the textual and extratextual level s adopted by Yang Xianyi and William Lyell,the author finds that,though the two translations have many similarities in representing the textual structure of the original and have basically reproduced the original image of the implied author,the differences mentioned above are enough to make them distinct from each other;furthermore,the differences in the four aspects of narrative reconstruction on the extratextual level are related to various aspects and constraints that affect the formation and reconstruction of the translation.Translation is a kind of re-narration,and a process in which the translator reconstructs the narrative logic based upon his or her grasp of the narrative clues of the original works.Research on the reconstruction of the original narrative help s us find the differences in the narration of the translations and the original,and probe into the purposes and strategies of the translators' reconstruction as well,so as to provide a deeper thinking and reference for the dissemination of Chinese literature.Combining the classical and postclassical narratolog y,the narrative analysis model of translations proposed and practised in this dissertation can provide a more systematic approach for achieving this goal.