Untranslatability Of Defamiliarization In Literary Works And Its Solution

Defamiliarization in literature refers to the fact that the author intentionally employs unusual depicting methods so as to prolong the readers'appreciation duration and bring the effect of strangeness and aesthetic beauty. Thus, defamiliarization is the essential manifestation of literariness. Since defamiliarization plays such indispensible and peculiar role, it attracts widely attention of the translation circle. Through the literary review, the author finds that previous studies all put emphasis on the representation of the original defamiliarization in the target language or only focus on the creative employment of the defamiliarized strategy in the course of translation. Yet very few touch upon the untranslatability of defamiliarization in literary translation and its strategies. In view of the gap in this aspect of translation studies circle, the author of this thesis tries to make a tentative and detailed study on defamiliarization in literary translation from the perspective of untranslatability.Based on the fundamental theory in translation such as Nida's functional equivalence theory,defamiliarization study and theories of untranslatability, it's just an ideal to achieve complete equivalence, particularly for those highly defamiliarized text in which untranslatability exists extensively. But, even so, the translators should be aware that they can apply some proper translation strategies and compensation methods to their translation so as to creatively achieve the functional equivalent effect with the original, bring the similar effect for the target reader with the original reader, and further give impetus to the enrichment and development of their mother Language.Famous for its literary defamiliarization and obscurity, Joyce's Ulysses is a highly untranslatable text. Taking the novel and its two Chinese versions, Xiao Qian and Wen Jieruo's and Jin Di's as a case study, this thesis analyzes the untranslatable phenomena of defamiliarization respectively from the phonetic, graphological, lexical, syntactical, and rhetorical levels through the methodology of qualitative analysis and the illustration of a large number of examples. Besides, solutions to untranslatable defamiliarization are tentatively brought up in order to make up the gap of this aspect in translation circles in hope of providing some humble references and experiences for the future studies and further pushing ahead the whole cause of translation.