On Stylistic Equivalence In Translation Of English Prose

Although prose does not portray characters or tell stories as Intricately and carefully as fiction,nor does it have dramatic conflicts as drama,it stands out with special text arrangement,careful diction and choice of images,which are the means to create a particular atmosphere and style within its short passages.As Buffon said,"The style is the man." It means every writer has his own linguistic style different than others.Thus we can by no means ignore the conveyance of style in prose translation.Style sets the tone for prose,and also shows the features of the language.It makes prose powerful and appealing.In another words style perfects prose and fulfills prose writers.Therefore,in translation of English prose,the conveyance of style should enjoy the topmost attention.The author of this paper tries to explore how to realize equivalent conveyance of style in translation of English prose with comparative and contrastive study of different renditions.This paper consists of four chapters.The first chapter illustrates the concept of prose and reviews the history of English prose.Prose used to be in a dilemma of unrecognized identity in the family of literature.Diverse opinions existed on many issues about prose.Even for its concept,there were many different views.In this paper the author adopts the generally accepted viewpoint that prose refers to those rhymeless works except fiction and drama,and makes the short literary elegant prose writings in English her subject of discussion.The second chapter expounds some relevant issues to the style of English prose in terms of Liu Miqing's Styles of Translation.First of all,cognizability of style is illustrated on the theoretical basis and with practical means,with kinds of examples illustrating the style of English prose from the phonological,lexical, syntactic,textual and rhetorical aspects.Then the paper gets rid of the traditional way of classifying prose and makes a new classification of plain, ornate,laconic,involved,humorous and ironic types in terms of style.This classification lays the foundation for the later discussion on stylistic equivalence in translation.The third chapter is on translation theories.After discussing the nature of translation and the essence of literary translation,the paper demonstrates that Nida's theory of functional equivalence can function as a guide to prose translation.Then the paper reviews the developing course of this theory and points out some principles appropriate especially for literary translation.The fourth chapter,as the main part,applies the functional equivalence theory to various examples and discusses how to realize the stylistic equivalence in translation of English prose.In the discussion and analysis, abundant examples from different renditions are employed.Studies are also carried out on the micro and macro levels.On the micro level,translations should achieve equivalence phonologically,lexically,syntactically,textually and rhetorically; on the macro level,comparison and contrast are made among English prose of different styles and their translations in order to discuss how to better demonstrate the idea of the work and the disposition of the writer for the equivalent conveyance of style.