A Semiotic Analysis Of Language Parallax Reflected In Zhao Yuanren’s Chinese Version Of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland

The research of translation as an independent discipline entails the application of theories of linguistics. In the course of combination of these theories, the language parallax, as a prominent phenomenon, is usually neglected, while it is important to recognize that the language parallax is unavoidable in switching two language codes. This thesis aims at analyzing the language parallax reflected in Zhao Yuanren’s Chinese version of Alices Adventures in Wonderland.Eugene A. Nida points out language not merely reflects the reality, but also distorts it. In two different language codes, language parallax may appear due to the collision of two cultures. Ferdinand de Saussure focuses on the arbitrariness in his semiotics theory-the connection between the signifier and signified. Charles S. Pierce makes a detailed explanation of semiotics, and puts forward his trichotomy-oriented theory, followed by Charles Morris’application of semiotics into semantics research. Charles extends the tri-relation into syntax, semantic and pragmatic, explaining the relationship of language signs, the language signs and their referent and relationship between language signs and their users; he provides three perspectives to inspect these relationships, from linguistic meaning, designative meaning and pragmatic meaning.This paper will discuss the language parallax in Zhao Yuanren’s Chinese version of Alices Adventures in Wonderland from the perspective of linguistic meaning, designative meaning and pragmatic meaning. It has been known that Zhao Yuanren made a successful translation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland which is considered to contain many untranslatable words, phrases and cultural blanks, such as puns, acrostic poems. Zhao Yuanren adopted different approaches to dealing with these challenges. Although language has changed over the years, yet his version is taken as the best one in achieving the cultural exchanges and standing up to the test of time. It is targeted at evaluating the language parallax in rhetoric devices, such as puns, alliteration and some culturally-loaded items when the translation is so equivalent to the original one. However, thanks to proper approaches to translation strategies, the language parallax could be reduced to a minimum.