A Study Of English Translations Of Chinese Avant-Garde Fiction

Chinese avant-garde fiction, which emerged around the late 1980s, has occupied an important and unique position in the history of Chinese contemporary literature. Its revolutionary rebellion against established literary conventions and bold innovative experiments on language and narrative modes have aroused heated debates and discussions among critics and readers from both China and the west.This paper is a pioneering study of the English translation of Chinese avant-garde fiction, especially focusing on how the translators dealt with the most significant and distinguished characteristics of Chinese avant-garde literature—the innovation with language. The researcher examined the language innovation of avant-garde fiction mainly from two aspects:unconventional collocation, and innovative use of rhetoric device. After that, a comparative method is adopted. Through the comparison and analysis between the original avant-garde fictions and their translations, this study aims to find out how the translators dealt with the language innovation in avant-garde fiction, how did the translations reproduce the original literary effect of avant-garde literature, and what elements affected the success of the translation.The data for this research are avant-garde fictions from major avant-garde writers as well as the corresponding translations translated by Andrew F. Jones, Howard Goldblatt, Victor H. Mair, and some other translators. During analysis, the researcher examined the source text and the translation from several perspectives including the content, the theme of the story, the narrative point of view, as well as the artistic effect avant-garde writers intended to achieve.Through the examination and analysis, the researcher pointed out that when dealing with avant-garde writers'manipulation of language, and the deliberate deviation from conventional rules in their writings, the translators tend to omit or change the language and narrative form of the original work, which largely weakened the artistic effects of avant-garde fictions. This phenomenon was especially noticeable in the translation of unconventional collocations. When the rendering of the original meaning contradicted with the rendering of the original form, translators tended to give priority to the former, guaranteeing the rendering of the meaning at the expense of the form. However, this translation strategy would easily lead to a departure from the original intention of avant-garde writers, and weakening the artistic effects of avant-garde works.Thus this study is an attempt to arouse from translators and researchers the awareness of the significance of the rendering of form in the translations of Chinese avant-garde literature. It is hoped that there will be more and better translations of Chinese avant-garde fiction in the future.