A Literary Stylistic Approach To The Style Translation In Pride And Prejudice

Style translation is an important part of literary translation, but controversial views exist as to what style is and the remarks on style translation are only abstract or impressionistic. In practice, due to the "paraphrasable" property of realistic fiction, many translators just get "deceptive equivalence", which does not convey the style of the original text.To handle it in a more scientific and practical way, literary stylistics is introduced to translation studies. This thesis intends to prove the effectiveness of stylistic approach in style translation by way of theoretical argumentation and practical comparison between two Chinese versions of Austen's Pride and Prejudice.Firstly, the paper offers a clear definition of style, which is the artistically or thematically motivated choice (Shen Dan, 1998, p. 17). Secondly, with substantial examples selected from Pride and Prejudice and its two Chinese versions at the lexical level and the syntactic level, detailed stylistic analyses are carried out to show that some translations fail to convey the original's style due to translators' negligence or insensitivity to stylistic devices and prove that stylistic analysis can enhance the translators' awareness of stylistic devices and improve their translations.On the other hand, the paper is not meant to offer a thorough checklist for stylistic analysis. That's why only typical aspects in the novel are selected to shed light on how stylistic approach is operated and how effective it is to detect the stylistic devices.