Meaning·Style·Function

Based on a sociosemiotic theory of language, the thesis is an attempt to adopt the sociosemiotic approach to studying translation of fiction through a fruitful application of its principles and strategies to actual practice.Sociosemiotics is a discipline that treats all systems of signs used by human societies, with language as the most comprehensive and complex of all systems of signs employed by humans. According to Halliday, language as a social semiotic is a system of meanings that constitutes the 'reality' of the culture. This theory, seeing language as an instrument of social interaction, also accounts for the strong connectedness between language and culture in the sense that language serves as a medium to realize numerous other branches of culture. It also enables us to comprehend the real nature of the text, that is, a text is a semantic unit with meaning and function, which should be grasped in a real context of situation and context of culture.Fiction, as a construct of the fictional 'reality', is an overall reflection of the real social life, presenting scenes, events and characters. A novel/short story actually is a unity of meaning, style (how to convey meaning) and function (why to convey meaning). Thus, translation of fiction is a multi-dimensional activity more complicated than the translation of other genres. It deals with bilingual, bi-social and bicultural transference as opposed to be a purely linguistic activity. However, both literary stylistic and linguistic approach have failed to recognize the nature of fictional translation, which needs not only reproduce the message, but also the style, including the authorial style and the text style. The sociosemiotic approach on the basis of a sociosemiotic theory of language has been found out to be relatively comprehensive, taking into account not only the original but also all the socio-cultural factors that have a bearing on the translation of fiction.Therefore the sociosemiotic approach is particularly applicable in translation of fiction. The usefulness and necessity of such an application is well justified by a detailed sample analysis of the original and translation of characters' speech in fiction and by effectively solving the problem of cultural default frequently occurring in translating fiction.The fruitful application of the sociosemiotic approach to practice manifests its great relevance to praxis. Though it is not possible for a fictional translator to achieve absolute equivalence due to tremendous cultural differences rather than the inadequacy on the part of the translator, relative equivalents at various levels can and should be retained to the largest extent, that is, correspondence in meaning and similarity in style and function.The discussion naturally leads to the conclusion that the lack of awareness of the multidimensional nature of fictional translation on the part of the translator will certainly cause errors or defects in translating fiction. In order to achieve a successful translated fiction work, a qualified translator should acquire both bilingual and bicultural competence and take pains to reduce the loss and distortion in his/her translation.