On The Translation Of Novels From The Perspective Of Translation Validity

As a vital part of literary translation, novel translation is able to promote the communication and transmission of cultures as well as to enrich the studies of translation. Novels are created on the basis of the author's intention to convey his or her emotions, which are manifested in the writing. Therefore, in the translation of a novel, the translator should first attach importance to the conveyance of the author's intentions. Traditional translation theories mainly probe into novel translations from the perspectives of"Domestication"and"Foreignization". Translation is a communicative activity in which translation validity is presented by the degree that the communicator's purpose or intention has been identified. These two perspectives comply with the"Fidelity"of translation. An ideal translation should be an integration of Fidelity and Validity. When the two are incompatible in one occasion, Validity should be first ensured. Translation validity was first put forward by the Finland scholar Andrew Chesterman. He takes validity as the successful translation. Chinese scholars in translation studies such as Zhao Yanchun and Si Xianzhu hold the view that the two important factors in translation are the communicator's intention of the original text and the audience's expectations. The degree of the realization in the process of translation is the translation validity, which can be adopted to direct the practice of translation. Translation of novels, a vital part of literary translation, has promoted cultural communications and transmission as well as has enriched the translation studies. The characteristics of novel language and structure have brought about much difficulty to their translations. Based on the previous studies on translation validity, the thesis, mainly from the communicator's intention, is aimed at discussing and analyzing the feasibility of applying translation validity to the evaluation of novel translation.Bian Cheng, the representative work of Shen Congwen, is characterized by its influential power to Chinese culture and customs. It has enormous influence on Chinese literature in history and it was recommended to participate in the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature. With reference to translation validity, the thesis makes a comparative study of the two English versions by Ching Ti & Robert Panyne and Yang Xiangyi & Gladys Yang. The case study involves the lexical level and syntactical level in the comparison of the title, names, and cultural-loaded words. The gains and losses of these two versions are discussed. This comparison is expected to provide some thoughts in translation practice and the retranslation of Bian Cheng.