A Stylistic Study Of The Translation Of Nieh-Tzu

Stylistics is a discipline mediating between linguistics and literary criticism. Based on linguistic knowledge, stylistic analysis aims to relate linguistic description of a literary text to the interpretation and aesthetic appreciation of the text, and explore the relevance between linguistic features and the resultant thematic meaning and aesthetic value. In this way, it can help to avoid subjective and intuitive interpretation of literary works. With rapid development of modern linguistics, stylistics began to develop into many schools: formal stylistics, functional stylistics, discourse stylistics, social-historical and social-cultural stylistics, literary stylistics and linguistic stylistics.It is of great significance to introduce literary stylistics into fictional translation, for it can not only operate to enhance the translator's stylistic competence and help him achieve functional equivalence in fictional translation, but also function to enhance the translation critic's stylistic awareness and keep him alert to the relevance between various forms and the theme of the novel.As for a literary text, its literary significance lies in both the content and the form, that is, the content as well as the ways of presenting the content. From the micro perspective, form in fiction refers to the different levels in the language system; from the macro perspective, form in fiction mainly covers points of view and different modes of speech and thought presentation. Both the micro and the macro perspective of form are the author's choices motivated by the theme of the novel and generated stylistic effects and aesthetic values. In this sense, stylistics offers a penetrating and rewarding insight into fictional translation.Nieh-Tzu (Crystal Boys) is the longest, as well as the last, novel written by the renowned Taiwan writer Pai Hsien-yung. As the first Taiwan novel which explicitly deals with male homosexuality, its publication has given rise to heated debates. Since 1990s, this book has been translated into numerous languages, including English, French, German and Japanese. Its English version, translated by American famous sinologist Howard Goldblatt, was published in USA in 1990 by Gay Sunshine Press. However, it has so far drawn few people's attention in the translation circle both at home and abroad and no one has made a systematic study of the English version of Nieh-Tzu. The present thesis makes an attempt to study the reproduction of the style in the English version of Nieh-Tzu based on the theory of stylistics.It is hoped that as the first attempt to criticize the English version of Nieh-Tzu from the perspective of literary stylistics, the thesis will help both Chinese and Western readers to understand the thematic and artistic values of Nieh-Tzu. In addition, this case study is intended to prove the necessity of introducing stylistics into translation studies.