Functionalism In Literary Translation

This dissertation aims at exploring translation as a dynamic activity from the Functionalistic perspective through a comparative study of the two Chinese versions of the English novel Vanity Fair. It illustrates the practicability and feasibility of German Functionalism in literary translation and further proposes that, German Functionalism, offering a multi-dimensional guiding principle for translation activity, will exert a profound influence on literary translation.This paper consists mainly of four chapters. The first chapter deals with the Functionalistic approaches that can be applied in the translation of literary texts. In this chapter, the Skopos proposed by Vermeer, which defines translation as a purposeful activity, is generally introduced from three aspects: first, by comparing a dynamic purpose-oriented concept "adequacy" in the Skopos with a static result-oriented concept "equivalence" in traditional translation theories, Vermeer defines "equivalence" as one possible aim in the Skopos and maintains that striving only for equivalence very often leads to incoherent or inconsistent translations; second, the Skopos Rule is raised as the core theory of Functionalism; third, a pair of important rules of Skopostheorie: "intra-textual coherence" and "inter-textual coherence" have been proposed by Vermeer to complement the Skopos theory. Then it approaches literary translation from the perspective of Functionalism, which includes: first, actional aspects of literary translation (cf. Christiane Nord: 2001); second, literary communication across culture barriers, including the controversy between domestication and foreignization as well as cross-cultural literary communication; third, translators' intentions and diversified translated texts arising from that. Finally, a purpose-oriented approach to literary translation advocated by Christiane Nord is elaborated so that the Skopos suggestions made by Nord will be applied to the comparative study of two Chinese versions in this thesis.Chapter Two is an introduction to the English novel Vanity Fair and its two renowned Chinese versions. The writer Thacheray William Makepeace, arepresentative of critical realism in the 19th century England, and his writing style, his principle in creation as well as his feeling towards his own works are presented so that a comparative study can be delivered on how both translators perceive the sender's (the author's) intention. Two renowned Chinese versions of Vanity Fair, respectively accomplished by Yang Bi and Peng Changjiang are introduced, together with the evaluation they have gained from experts in the translation circles. Before going into the details of comparative study in the next chapter, an general overview of the two versions is given so as to provide a panorama of the ivJO Owiese oJ- Vomwfair-In chapter Three, a comparative study, which is the main body of this thesis, is made from four respects: lexicon, style, discourse and culture. Through a meticulous analysis of the two Chinese versions in light of Functionalism, the writer of this thesis attempts to demonstrate that translators can choose different strategies in accordance with their varied intentions. Compatibility between the sender's intention and target receivers' expectation under the loyalty principle is the premium task confronted by a translator. The first section mainly deals with semantic meaning of lexicon. Through a detailed comparison between two translators' renditions in terms of conceptual meaning, connotative meaning, affective meaning as well as collocative meaning, strategies in conveying sender's intention and rendering the same effect on target receivers are discussed. In the second section, the translation of style (ideological style and language style) is explored. With regard to ideological style, the conveyance of sender's intention in different strategies is studied. The delivery of language style is elaborated in three respects: wordage, syntactic and rhetorical devices. Each respect contains abundant typical English-Chinese translation phenomena as well as the two translators' ingenious practice in their decision-making. The third section deals with discoursal translation^ tf in terms of the narrator's point of view and secondly in terms of information arrangement, which is decided by the unique characteristics of the novel Vanity Fair. The last section concerns culture, which is the last but not the least, as translation is a cultural-transferring activity according to Functionalism.In Chapter Four, it reviews the significance of Functionalism in literarytranslation. By reflecting on the application of Functionalistic approaches in the two versions, the writer of this thesis illustrates the applicability of Functionalism in literary translation as well as the guiding role it plays in the realization of translation purposes. Meanwhile, some problems in the two Chinese versions are pointed out without any irreverence but in the hope of improvement. Comparison between the different versions often casts light on their merits and demerits, thus the applicability of the Functionalistic approaches in literary translation is self-evident.German Functionalism, which approaches literary translation from the starting point of function and effect, offers a theoretical guidance to, and exerts a profound influence on, literary translation.