A Narratological Approach To Eileen Chang’s Adaptations In The Translation Of The Yearling

Eileen Chang, whose works are popular with readers and considerablyconcerned by scholars and critics over the years, is acknowledged as a talentedfemale writer in the history of modern Chinese literature. Since the1980s, withEileen’s status as a writer is formally recognized in the history of Chinese literature,her accomplishments are greatly acknowledged, and more attention is paid to her andher works. Statistics shows that focuses of the fever on Eileen or the study of Eileenare mostly on her own works and achievements, while her status as a translator isoften neglected. Moreover, researches on Eileen’s translation lay much emphasis onher self-translation and her translation of The Old Man and the Sea, an Americannovel. While researches on her other translations are very limited, with The Yearlingbeing one of them. This study on Eileen’s translation of The Yearling aims to do itsbit in the study of Eileen, and enrich researches on Eileen’s translations and Eileen inthe history of Chinese translated literature.This thesis adopts a narratological perspective to study Eileen’s translation ofThe Yearling. It firstly gives an overview of the study on Eileen’s translation, theapplication of narratology in fictional translation and then through the analysis ofsamples, it discusses Eileen’s adaptations in two aspects: overall omission andreconstruction, and partial and detailed adaptations including reduction of narrativepause, shift of narrative perspective and filling of narrative blanks. Correspondinginfluences on basic narrative features and aesthetic effects of The Yearling, andreasons are also dealt with in this thesis. It is found that although there are severallosses in basic narrative features in Eileen’s translation, on the whole, Eileen’stranslation retains and strengthens the narrative type of this children’s book to someextent.