Reflection On Literary Dialect Translation In Light Of Functional Translation Theory

The translation of dialect in literature translation has always been a huge difficulty. Itis because dialect as a regional or social non-standard language has its own speciallinguistic features and cultural connotations as well as its remarkable expressive power andpeculiar artistic functions which earn its place in Chinese and foreign literature andbecause of the great differences between Chinese and English and so as between theircorresponding literature. However, at present there are few theories that can provideinstructions to literature dialect translation and most of these theories are summaries ofpersonal translation experience which are lack of argument and have a lot of controversy.The cultural shift of translation studies began in the1970s. There were various kindsof translation theories pouring out to us from then on. At that time, the German FunctionalSchool rose up sharply as an influential force. In order to provide translators validmethodological guidance and insure the functional adequacy of the translation text in thecontext of the target culture, Functional Translation Theory advocates translators to do theoriginal text analysis and draw up the translation strategy through adequate considerationof the author’s intention, translation goal, text type and discourse genre, the readers’expectation and the need of initiator. According to functionalists, on comprehending andexpressing dialect works, one should take into account the author’s intention, targetlanguage situation, cultural differences and the expectant effect of the target text, whichhappen to have the same factors that translators need to consider when they choose thestrategy of translating the dialect in English literature into Chinese. All these reasons makeFunctional Translation Theory the perfect guide for the translation of literature dialect.This paper intends to reveal the gain and loss of various kinds of dialect translationmethod on the aspects of delivering the information and reproducing the functions of theoriginal text, being faithful to the author, and considering the acceptability of target readers,etc. Through a case study of two Chinese versions of Tess of the D’ Ubervilles in Light ofFunctional Translation Theory, the paper proposes feasible suggestions on the selection oftranslation strategy and solutions to solve the defect of the method of using dialect totranslate another dialect.Through the research, we can see that the selection of the strategy of translating literature dialect received comparatively comprehensive guidance. In the meantime, thispaper has broadened the horizon of dialect translation research and provides a brand newperspective for insuring the functional adequacy of the translation text of the literaturedialect in the culture of the target language.My research falls into five parts:(1) introduction and literature review, presenting theresearch background and the purpose of my thesis and looking back the existing researcheson literature dialect translation and giving a further discussion about them;(2) study on thedifferences between English and Chinese dialects;(3) Functional Translation Theory,introducing the guiding theory of my research and discussing its guiding significance toliterature dialect translation;(4) case study of two Chinese versions of Tess of the D’Ubervilles in Light of Functional Translation Theory; proposing feasible translationstrategy to solve these problems of literature dialect translation;(5) epilogue, summarizingthe thesis, stating the significance of my study and proposing suggestions for furtherresearch on this subject.