Reproduction Of Style In Literary Translation--A Preliminary Study Of Yang Bi's Translation Of Vanity Fair

Is literary style translatable? It is a very controversial issue in the field of translation. As to this question, there are two opposing opinions. One is that style is untranslatable. Because style and language are inseparable, different languages cannot express the same style. The other is that style is translatable. Because style is based on language, and language is translatable, so is style. A great majority of scholars maintain that it is possible and necessary to reproduce the original style of literary works. Literary translator should strive to reproduce the style as well as the content of the original. Those literary translations without basically reproducing the style cannot be called genuine or faithful translations. The translatability of literary style has been testified and guiding principles, convincing examples have been given. In China, there are a lot of fine translated works which basically retain the original style. Take the translation of Vanity Fair(《名利场》) by Yang Bi(杨必) for example, it is evaluated as one of the masterpieces that have reproduced the original style. Therefore there is no need for the present writer to further explore the translatability of style. Instead, the paper tends to explore the question of how to reproduce the original style by making a preliminary study of Yang Bi's translation of Vanity Fair. First of all, we must make clear of what style is. Style consists of a writer's personality and his artistic characteristics. Secondly, it is very significant to reproduce the original style so that the translation can entertain the reader, or serves as an example for writers, or serves as an object of study and comparison for scholars. Thirdly, the relationship between the original style and the translator's style should be properly handled. The translator should make his own style be in conformity with the original style. The last comes to that question of how to reproduce the original style. The present paper tends to explore some linguistic characteristics of Yang Bi's reproduction of the original style. In my opinion, it is more practical for the young practitioner to learn from Yang Bi's experience and techniques. The overall style of Yang's translation is plain and simple, succinct and comic. But there is beauty in simplicity. In her choice of words, Yang Bi uses those simple, lively and proper words, including common words, classical words, literary words and colloquial words, thus reproducing the linguistic style and adding color to her translation. In her sentence rearrangement, Yang Bi is not stuck to the surface structure of the original. Instead, she carefully rearranges her sentence pattern according to the context and the usage of the Chinese language. It is through her simple, lively and comic language and the vivid re-creation of image of the characters that the spirit and flavor of the original work has been superbly reproduced by Yang Bi. According to the study, Yang Bi's success lies in her literary attainments and her superb use of her mother tongue. On the basis of accurate comprehension of the original work, Yang chooses those proper words according to the context instead of matching words mechanically in dictionaries. And she uses the pure Chinese sentence pattern to avoid translationese. That is what we should learn from those excellent translators when we practice translation.