Stylistic Studies Of The Early Modern Chinese Translation Of Foreign Fictions

Based on the perspectives of literary stylistics, this dissertation analyzes the formal features of the early modern Chinese translation of foreign fictions from some theories of narratology and translation.In the stylistic studies of the early modern Chinese translation of foreign fictions, our first concern is its textual analysis, which consists of two parts: styles in language and textual structures. As far as the styles in language are concerned, the early modern Chinese translation of foreign fictions is marked by the use of three language types: classical Chinese as a target language, vernacular Chinese as a target language, and the half classical and half vernacular Chinese as a target language. Furthermore, there is infiltration of some foreign linguistic features into the fictions. With respect to the textual structures, translators' handling of narrative time, narrative points of view, and narrative structures in the translated versions are laid special stress on.Secondly, the cultural interpretation of the style mainly involves discussion on translators, readers, and the translation field. To begin with, translators always play a leading role in determining the style of a version, and their strategies in translation are closely related to their attitudes towards translation and their cultural stances. Moreover, readers' stylistic expectations have much bearing on the acceptance of literary style, without which literary communication will not be completed successfully. Finally, both the creation and acceptance of the style exercise their influences in certain translation field. Having an eyeon various factors in the translation field will certainly benefit us with an integrated understanding of it. This dissertation, as a result, makes an effort to identify such cultural factors and then tries to illustrate in what way these factors determine or limit the choice of the styles in the course of translation.