The Application Of Stylistic Analysis To The Comparative Study Of The Two Chinese Versions Of Walden

Great progress has been made in stylistics both in the West and China, but its importance in translation studies has not yet been fully recognized by translation scholars (申丹, 2002: 7). Stylistic analysis deserves due attention because of its great practical value in translation criticism. The thesis is a tentative endeavor to apply stylistic analysis to the comparative study of the two Chinese versions of Walden. The author of the thesis takes Xu Chi's and Yang Jiasheng's Chinese versions as objects of study, aiming at analyzing and evaluating them objectively and justly. The striking stylistic features of the two versions are to be described, the causes responsible for the differences are to be expounded and the two versions are to be evaluated.The author of the thesis begins with the major theoretical framework of stylistic analysis, which is generally concerned with the uniqueness of a text; that is, what it is that is peculiar to the uses of language in a literary text for delivering the message. This involves comparison of the language of the text with that used in conventional types of discourse. Stylistic analysis is an activity which is highly comparative in nature. It is thus applicable to the present comparative translation study.Halliday identifies two goals of stylistic analysis. The first is "to show why and how the text means what it does" (Halliday, 1973: x). The second is that of "showing why the text is valued as it is" (Halliday, 1973: x). The thesis writer attempts to attain two goals of stylistic analysis upheld by Halliday in the present study, firstly to show why and how the translated literary text means what it does, secondly to show why the translated literary text is valued as it is.The author of the thesis then moves on to the three component parts of stylistic inquiry: description, interpretation and evaluation, and these three parts are integrated in the present research. Different views on style are also examined in this research paper, but only striking lexical, syntactic and discourse features in the two translated works are to be described and interpreted, which serves to generate the stylistic effects.The author of the thesis then focuses on Walden and two of its Chinese versions. One is retranslated by Xu Chi in 1982 after his first translation in 1949, republished by Shanghai Translation Publishing House in 2004; the other is by Yang Jiasheng in 2004, published by Tianjin Education Press in the same year.The author of the thesis compares the lexical, syntactic and discourse features of the two versions. The lexical differences between the two versions are to be examined in terms of degree of formality, expressive meaning, frequency of the two lexical items "人类" and "大自然" and acceptability of lexical items for contemporary readers. The author of the thesis finds out that, firstly, many expressions in Yang' s version are less formal than those in Xu's version; secondly, expressions in Xu's version are generally less emotional than those in Yang's version; thirdly, some lexical items in Xu's version seem less natural than those in Yang's version for contemporary Chinese readers; fourthly, the frequencies of the important lexical items "人类" and "大自然" are higher than thosein Xu's version.The author of the thesis further finds that, Europeanized syntax is prevalent in Xu's version whereas idiomatic Chinese syntax is dominant in Yang's version. The distinctive syntactic features in the two versions are to be examined from the aspect of sentence structure and use of subject. Xu followed the sentence structures of source language whereas Yang followed the sentence structures of target language. Different sentence structures result in unnatural syntax in Xu's version and smooth flow of syntax in Yang's version respectively for contemporary Chinese readers. As for use of subject, Xu preserved all the subjects in the source text. On the contrary, Yang's rendering is more flexible. Some subjects were reduced according to context, without causing any misunderstanding for Chinese readers nowadays, thus his translation sounds more natural than Xu's version.The author of the thesis further analyzes the external and internal factors of the different lexical and syntactic features. Since the Vernacular Movement, written Chinese was constantly influenced by the Indo-European languages, especially English. Chinese language was "contaminated" by English directly or indirectly through translation activities and witnessed a tendency of Europeanization. Apart from all external influence, gradual changes appear to be inevitable. Some lexical items in Xu's version were once acceptable, but they are rarely used or even out of date nowadays; the corresponding items in Yang's version are more familiar and acceptable to contemporary Chinese readers. What's more, colloquiallization is the general trend to govern the change of contemporary prose language. That's the reason why the diction in Yang's version is less formal than that in Xu's version. The thesis writer then focuses on the discourse features of the two versions, and finds the following differences: word was taken as translating unit by Xu, who followed the canonical form of the source text, seems to have been completely restricted by the surface meaning of the source text and whose own interpretation was seldom integrated into his reproduction; Yang attached much importance to the discourse level in the process of translating, adapted to the canonical form of the target text appropriately and considered the unity and coherence of discourse, so that his version conforms to the habitual practice of Chinese language and is more acceptable for contemporary Chinese readers.According to all the analysis, the thesis writer concludes:①.Yang's retranslated work in our era is timely in that the message conveyed has the ecological significance and that the linguistic forms may satisfy contemporary Chinese readers' linguistic expectation.②. Yang's version is chiefly target-language-oriented while Xu's version is mainly source-language-oriented, so that the former reads more like native Chinese literature and the latter more like translated literature.③. Yang's reproduction is more close to the meaning of the original work than Xu's.At last, the writer of the present thesis desires to mention that this research may shed new light on the application of stylistic analysis to comparative translation study. It should be noted that it is of much importance to describe and expound the stylistic differences, and that it is also of paramount importance to delve into the external or internal causes responsible for the differences. Furthermore, since eco-literature and eco-criticism have aroused pervasive interests nowadays, this research keeps abreast of the reality. The eco-literary significance of Walden has already been acknowledged, but a systematic translation study of the eco-literary work has rarely been conducted, especially of Yang Jiasheng's version, which has not been systematically studied yet. By conducting the first systematic comparative study of the two versions, the writer of the present thesis hopes that the case study of Walden may attract scholars' attention to the translation of eco-literary works. However, viewing that the present study is the first tentative attempt to conduct the systematic comparative study of the two versions, further efforts are called for in the research on such a topic.