A Study On The Late Qing Vernacular Fiction Style Of The Travels Of Lao Can In Its Translation

Written by Liu E, The Travels of Lao Can was considered one of the four denouncing novels of Qing Dynasty. The novel exposes the darkness of the society and people's tragic life at that time, and its literature and language art is considered preeminent among the novels of the late Qing dynasty. As a representative of the late Qing vernacular fictions, the novel possesses a series of integrated features from aspects of vocabulary, sentence patterns, grammar and other language elements. These features make The Travels of Lao Can different from the western novels and contemporary Chinese fictions, and meanwhile reflect the unique style of the late Qing vernacular novels. The combination of these various language elements has formed a network of style elements, which highlights the unique language features of The Travels of Lao Can. This thesis is based on the translation of the language style and to explore the late Qing vernacular novel The Travels of Lao Can's translation. On premise of analysis on the meaning and effect of the language elements, which have the characteristics of the language style from three levels- vocabulary, sentence, discourse, this thesis aims to explore how to employ a variety of translation strategies to make these language elements reproduced in the novel's translation.The thesis consists of three chapters. The first chapter focuses on vocabulary level of the style translation. Vocabulary is an essential element of style. In this chapter, we divide vocabulary with characteristics of language style into two types-one is cultural and idiomatic words and the other is spoken and dialect words. With research methods from literary stylistics, this chapter is to explore how to reproduce style features on vocabulary level in translation. The second chapter focuses on sentence level of the style translation. In a language style system, the sentence is one of the best parts to embody the characteristics of the style elements. The main study of this chapter focuses on three types of sentences: sentences with mixed classical Chinese and vernacular, inserted components and alternating verse and prose. In this chapter, we are going to analysis specific rhetoric effects and pragmatic values of these sentences and explore how to reproduce these stylist characteristics in the translation. The third chapter studies on the discourse level of the style translation, which is mainly from two aspects-chapter structure and textual cohesion to discuss reproduction in translation on the discourse level.The conclusion summarizes the contents of the three chapters. In this thesis, we focus on the translation studies of late Qing vernacular novel style of The Travels of Lao Can, using research methods from modern linguistics, literary stylistics and rhetorical fiction and make a summary of the policies and laws on translating language elements with stylistic elements which consist in vocabulary, sentences and discourse-these three levels. Our aim is to achieve the clarity of the basic law and strategies on translating novels of such style in order to improve their translation quality.