On The Translational Style Of A Translator

Literary style refers to the distinctive features resulting from the linguistic choices madefrom a repertoire of a particular language by the literary artist under the constraint of bothstatic and dynamic factors. It is characterized by subjective and individual traits. In a sense,both the author and the reader jointly produce the style of a work of literature. Failing torealize this point, we can hardly grasp the essential connotations of literary style.The study of style in translation is different from that in the field of literary creation orartistic invention due to the nature of translation. The translator can not choose many elementsof style at will, such as the subject matter, theme, plot, characterization, etc, which arepredetermined by the source text. Traditional translation theories focus on the observation ofthe source text's style, which centers on the central concept of "style translation", namely, howto render the original style with utmost loyalty. Therefore the translator has frequently beenmarginalized and ignored and the translator's style has scarcely been mentioned or studied.In the 1970s, translation studies took the "cultural turn". Under the influence of culturalstudies, translation scholars began to shift the focus of their study from source texts to targettexts. What is more, while studying translated texts, they began to adopt descriptiveapproaches. Under this situation, the creative role played by the translator in the process oftranslation is thrown into the limelight. Naturally, the acknowledgement of the creative roleplayed by the translator puts the study of the translator's style on a firm base. Certainly, thetranslator' style has become an important research subject in translation studies.Approaching the translator's style from different perspectives, the author of thisdissertation explores various factors, which contribute to the formation of the translator'stranslational style. In so doing, the author illustrates that the nature of a translator'stranslational style is essentially the manifestation of the translator's translating motivation,translating concept and translating strategy;and it is actually the reflection of thetranslator's translating traits represented in his/her works, which are constrained by hisaesthetic intuition, literary competence and language hobbies. Translational style and creativestyle are two different existing forms of literary style. There exist similarities and differencesbetween them. While the style of the translated literary works reflects some features of theoriginal works', it is essentially a manifestation of the translator's translational style. Whetherthe translated works' style conforms to that of the original depends on the translator'stranslational style.With a descriptive approach, the author of this dissertation probes into the translator'stranslational style frown different perspectives, aiming at offering fresh insights on theaffirmation of translator's creativity and the re-evaluation of his labor, granting him thedeserved occupation in translation, with the reference to both process and product, and in thewhole literary system.