On Yang Bi’s Translation Style

In1847William Thackeray started writing of Vanity Fair. The complete Chineseversion by Yang Bi published by People’s Literature Press in1957was a great success.Unlike studies on other famed translators such as Yan Fu, Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang,Fu Lei, Wang Zuoliang, and Zhang Guruo, etc., studies concerning Yang Bi’s translation isnot comprehensive and thorough, though her unique long1translation work Minglichang isalways a hot “spot”. According to information currently available study papers are notsmall in numbers but restricted in certain aspects. Some theses give evasive comments onher translation but did not go into the details and some only discuss the reproduction ofstyle of the original work. Seldom does one focus on Yang Bi’s translation style in terms ofthe translation itself and the translator. Thus to make further study of Yang Bi, hertranslation style is going to be discussed in this paper by using the methods advocated byMr. Liu Miqing in his book Contemporary Translation Theory. He said that the style of theoriginal work can be recognized by stylistic markers, which, of course, can be used toanalyze the style of the translation as well. In this thesis comparative, qualitative andquantitative (if possible) analysis will be made between Yang Bi and Rong Rude in termsof three stylistic formal markers strikingly prominent in her version, phonological markers,lexical markers and syntactic markers. Specifically, reduplicated word and rhythm andrhyme as phonological markers, colloquial word in conversation, modal particles, erhuaciand pronoun translation as lexical markers, four-character sentence, sentence length andtype as syntactic markers will be discussed. Non-formal markers will be incorporated intothe analyses of formal markers since receptor’s aesthetic preference and translator’stemperament affect translator’s choice of language forms. It’s hoped that this thesis will doa bit as reference to the recognition of Yang Bi’s translation style and the reasons for theversion’s long-standing popularity. In so doing to arouse translator’s awareness about thesignificance of translation style to the success of literary translation.