A Study Of Fuzzy Language In Literary Works And Its Translation

In recent years, it has been popularly recognized that translation studies is interdisciplinary. Disciplines like logic, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and linguistics are being brought into the academic range of translation study gradually. Translational aesthetics-the new combination of translation and aesthetics has aroused increasing attentions of translators and scholars, and many works are published on translational aesthetics. In both Chinese and Western translation history, their relationship has a deep origin. Aesthetics, which is a branch of philosophy, with fully-fledged theory and experience foundation will be well supportive to the study of literary translation. As the requirements of artistic quality of translation are growing higher and higher, aesthetics needs to be applied to translation both theoretically and practically. The development of translational aesthetics indicates that literary translation has grown from a skill or communicative level to an art realm.Fuzziness widely exists in human life, and it is a prominent characteristic in language and also a common phenomenon existing in any language in the world. Fuzzy language is an ideal carrier for literature. Owing to the incorporation of fuzzy language, literary art can transcend aesthetic object as well as aesthetic subject; thereby enlarge the artistic space, and obtain aesthetic feeling. However, there are dramatic differences between fuzziness in Chinese and that in English as far as their aesthetic manifestation modes are concerned. "The advantage of Chinese lies in its fuzziness." (Ji Xianlin, 1996:3) On the contrary, English is analytical and logic-oriented, which is characterized by hypotaxis and clarity. Therefore, it is a must for translation studies to probe into strategies to deal with fuzzy language transfer between Chinese and English. The scholars both at home and abroad have done a lot of studies on fuzziness; however, they show inadequacy concern for the associative study between fuzzy language and aesthetics. In fact, there are some Chinese documents on the study of the aesthetic features of fuzzy language, but they usually pay too much attention to the study of poems. In addition, the research made by domestic scholars on the relationship between fuzzy linguistics and translatology is introductive and inspirational, however, further researches has to be done. A few scholars (such as Yu Fubin) refers to the translation of fuzzy language and also advocates some operating mode, but their work has a long way to go in terms of the view point of fuzzy language comparison.Taking this situation into consideration, the author attempts to make a tentative study of fuzzy languages in literary works and its translation from a perspective of aesthetics, including the relationship between translational aesthetics and fuzzy language in literary works, the aesthetic values and aesthetic features of language fuzziness, the similarities and differences in fuzzy language between Chinese and English, and strategies to deal with the transference of fuzzy beauty in literary translation.This thesis consists of four chapters in addition to the introduction and conclusion. The paper begins with the introduction, which introduces the research background briefly, the objectives, significances as well as the structure of the thesis. Chapter one is a brief review of the past relevant research, the author briefs the research situation of the theme both at home and abroad and summarizes the deficiencies. In chapter two, the author explores the relationship between translational aesthetics and fuzzy language in literary works. On the basis of the exploration, she makes a tentative study of the aesthetic values and aesthetic features of fuzzy language in literary works. Chapter three analyses the commonness and differences in fuzzy beauty manifestations between Chinese and English. In Chapter four, the author brings forth three strategies to deal with the transference of fuzzy beauty in literary translation, i.e. maintaining fuzziness, concretizing fuzziness and adding fuzziness. The conclusion generalizes the whole thesis briefly, giving the main viewpoints of the author and pointing out the contributions as well as limitations of this research.