Strategies Of Stylistic Reproduction In English Version Of Turbulence-from The Perspective Of Stylistic Markedness Theory

Turbulence, created by the renowned Chinese writer Jia Pingwa, reveals themood of restiveness in the society after reform and opening-up in the1980s in China.Integrating traditional Chinese realism with western writing techniques, Jia describesthe story in Shang Zhou region with great passion and enthusiasm. The unique writingstyle and distinctive features in Turbulence are worthy of study.The novel was awarded American Pegasus Prize for literature in1989, and itsEnglish version by Howard Goldblatt enjoyed high reputation. Acclaimed as theforemost translator of contemporary Chinese fictions and prose, Goldblatt exerts greateffort to use idiomatic English and fluent expressions, with the aim of reproducing thestyle of original novel. Many critics and scholars have appreciated and evaluatedEnglish version from different perspectives, but none of them studied the style of thetranslation. Based on the analysis of original writing style and Goldblatt’s translatingstyle, the theory of stylistic markedness is employed to make a comparative study ofTurbulence and its English version. This thesis analyzes translating methods ofGoldblatt’s translation in details at three levels: lexicon, syntax and context. Thetranslation of idioms, dialects, allusions, figures of speech, as well as speech andthought presentation has been analyzed and explored in details. A number of specificexamples are extracted from source text and target text to expound differenttranslating approaches. Apart from literal translation and liberal translation, Goldblattadopts flexible methods to reflect the style of original novel. Strengths and limitationsof Goldbaltt’s translation will be discussed so as to test whether Goldbaltt hasreproduced the original style.