| Shuihuzhuan (æ°´æµ’ä¼ ), as one of the four classical novels in the history of Chinese literature, has a significant impact on Chinese culture and China's national spirit. It has been translated into many foreign languages and its artistic value has been spoken highly of by innumerous readers. Researches into the English translation of Shuihuzhuan conform to the current trend of China's effort to vigorously promote translation of Chinese classical works. And such researches would also have significance on how to effectively promote cultural communication and elevate China's profile as a great power. As for the translation of Shuihuzhuan into English, so far, there have been four versions in total. The one by Pearl Buck is the first complete English version, the most popular and also the most controversial. Criticism on this version mainly focuses on its linguistic expression with distinct Chinese style. However, this cannot explain the reason why her version All Men Are Brothers is so widely accepted abroad. The past researches into Pearl S. Buck's version were done from the perspectives of ideology, feminism, culturalism, post-colonialism, contextual analysis and so on. Although some progress has been made, the research scope is limited and theoretical vision is not broad enough. At present, translation studies are heading towards cross-disciplinary approaches. With regard to the translation of literary works, we should first focus on the"literariness"in literary works. One of the most essential factors constituting"literariness"is"defamiliarization". The author of this thesis believes that the application of the defamiliarization concept, which is a term in literary theory, can better explain why the translation of Pearl S. Buck, a bilingual writer who has unique bi-cultural identity, is so popular. The term"defamiliarization"was coined by Russian formalist Viktor Shklovsky. It was initially used to describe Russian formalism poetry in the early 20th century and some literary phenomenon in German drama in the 1940's. As a means of artistic expression, the concept"defamiliarization"means the deliberate use of artistic techniques in the artistic creation of novels. It is a technique"to make objects'unfamiliar', to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception", so as to prolong the process of readers'aesthetic perception as much as possible". Apart from the field of literary criticism,"defamiliarization"is also widely used in the field of literary translation. Based on the historical background, this thesis starts from an analysis of the textual features with examples -- and sometimes a contrastive analysis when necessary -- in order to analyze defamiliarization embodied in the narrative form, image construction, linguistic features and other aspects of language in Pearl S. Buck's translation, as well as her representation of defamiliarization of the original. It may be argued that it is her application of defamiliarization that satisfies the target readers'aesthetic expectation of reading literary works and represents the original charm of language. That's the reason why Buck can make such a great achievement in translation. At the same time, Buck's translation strategy of defamiliarization can provide some useful enlightenment to our country's translation of literary classics and overseas publicity.
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