Functional Stylistics And Literary Translation

This thesis discusses the translation of style and argues for the translatability of style. Style has always been problematic for translators, literary translators in particular. There exist sharply contrasting views on the translatability of style: some translators or translation theorists are for the position that style is translatable, but other~ are strongly against it. This dispute can be ascribable to the polemic perception that is accorded to style. For monists, who claim the inseparability of content and form, style is to be found in every linguistic choice or extra-linguistic choice. In other words, every choice of form or content is also a stylistic choice. Thus translation is out of the question. Let alone translation of style. On the contrary, dualists or formal stylisticians, who hold the dichotomy of content and form, identify style with the level of form. Therefore the translation of style is always in conflict with the rendering of the content, or the representation of "meaning"in the TL. An alternative to both is pluralism, or functional stylistics, which regards style as the linguistic choices for the three types of functions or metafiinctions, namely, ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function. In this manner, style is related to the functions that the text producer is intended for, escaping the dilemma of either the monists' inseparability of style from both content and form or the dualists'location of style at the level of form as against content. Thus, the present study studies style from a functionalist perspective, which partly legitimates the argument of style translatability. However, the translatability of style is further complicated by the general and all-inclusive vision of many stylisticians and analysts on the question of style. Since the purpose of this study is to relate the findings of style to the practice of translation, the domain of style is restricted to textual style, i.e., the textual elements that are artistically or thematically motivated, leaving out genre or period style and authorial style. The term "translation"is redefined as the reproduction in the TL the stylistic equivalence of the artistically or thematically motivated linguistic choices apart from the semantic meaning at the surface value of the SL. As a result, the translation of style can find its solution in the application of stylistics to translation. A possible way to translate style is suggested: the translator starts from the detection of linguistic choices of stylistic significance with his intuition to the text, or rather to the linguistic structures to be specific. This evaluation on which linguistic choices are stylistically significant will be justified by the motifs or the aesthetic effect of the linguistic forms. With this evaluation justified, the translator goes on to find a close rendering of the stylistic functions generated by the motivated choices in the TL to achieve stylistic equivalence. Finally, the argument that style is translatable by uniting stylistics with translation is given evidence by the analysis of style translation at the lexical and grammatical level.