On Reproducing Style Of Charles Lamb’s Essays In Chinese

Style, as the soul of the literary works, is an inescapable topic in literary translation.In translation studies, it has been heatedly discussed on such issues as the definition,translatability and translation strategies. However, despite the various definitions of style,it can be viewed from the linguistic and literary perspectives. There are also differentarguments on the translatability of style, but the majority of translation theorists havereached the consensus that style can be and must be translated.Comparatively speaking, in style translation studies, poetry and fiction receive moreattention in China, while essay translation benefits much less. As a matter of fact, essays,as a literary genre featuring in free personal expression, are quite popular among generalreaders. Since every essayist has his own style, style is crucial in essay translation.Charles Lamb is a well-known essayist in English literature. His representative workEssays of Elia has not only preserved the previous traditions in essays writing, but alsoformed his own unique style. Therefore, the studies on the Chinese translation of hisworks are of great significance.Based on the two Chinese versions provided by Prof. Liu Bingshan and Prof. GaoJian, this thesis has made tentative discussions on the style translation of Lamb’s essaysfrom two perspectives, namely linguistic perspective and literary perspective. From thelinguistic view, four language features are prominent: conversational, antique, rhetoricaland humorous. The translator should first identify the style markers of these features andthen adopt proper translation strategies so as to fully reproduce the language style. Fromthe literary view, style is related to more subtle factors such as way of expression, generalemotions and aesthetic subject. Lamb’s essays adopt intimate approach in writings andare abundant with nostalgic and sympathetic emotions. The translator should interpret thefactors from the whole so as to render the original style as closely as possible.