A Study On The Defamiliarization In Heart Of Darkness And Its Translations

The main feature that makes a literary translation distinct from other categories of translation lies in the literariness of literature. According to Russian Formalism, literariness is the thing that makes specific works become literary works. A literature without literariness cannot be called literature. Therefore, in translation we should pay attention to the translation of literariness. Russian formalist Victor Shklovsky puts forward the famous concept in literature-defamiliarization. He thinks that it is this fresh and strange expression of defamiliarization that contributes to the literariness of literature. However, the emphasis on content over form has taken the leading role in translation circle home and abroad for a long time. Translators focused on transmitting the meaning of the original and ignored the form. In recent years, many scholars and translators began to pay attention to the importance of form in translation and advocate that translation should preserve the original defamiliarization features. According to Russian Formalism, defamiliarization is actually making the familiar thing unfamiliar to give people a sense of freshness and strangeness. It is a technique to counter "automation" of perception. The application of Defamiliarization in Translation theories means that translators should preserve the original defamiliarization features and exotic flavor so as to bring target readers a sense of freshness and strangeness. Foreignization is the commonest way to achieve defamiliarization in translation, but there are other ways, for example recreation that also can help achieve the effect of defamiliarization. As human’s activity of perception is easily bored, absolute foreignization could not achieve defamiliarization all the time.This essay chooses three Chinese translated versions (that is Sun Lizhong, Huang Yushi, Zhi Liang respectively) of the famous writer Joseph Conrad’s representative work Heart of Darkness as research objects, using the theory of defamiliarization and analyzing these three Chinese translations from the lexical, syntactical, rhetorical and cultural levels to see whether three translators noticed defamiliarization in their translations, what methods did they employ in their translation and what effect has been achieved. Heart of Darkness is one of the representative works of the famous Polish-born English writer Joseph Conrad. As a masterpiece of modernism, Heart of Darkness is famous for its unique narrative structure, ingenious plotting and meaningful rhetorical devices. It is a literature of high artistic value. The defamiliarization on the theme, the narration, the structure and the diction all give readers a fresh reading experience. Each of The three Chinese translated works by three different translators has its own strong points. All the three translations have achieved defamiliarization in their translation differently by using various methods. Generally speaking, Sun Lizhong’s version presents more free style with many adaptations. He pays much attention to the fluency of translation in order to release the target readers’reading difficulty, which in its essence weakens the effect of defamiliarization in his translation. Zhi Liang’s version is loyal to the original both on the content and on the form; he does well in preserving the original writing style and the effect of defamiliarization. And Huang Yushi’s version shares the merits of the above two. His translation employs many creative adaptations while keeping to the original form and content resulting in a changeable and flexible diction that catches the target readers’attention. By employing his excellent language competence, Huang creatively presents an effect of defamiliarization in his translation. From the perspective of defamiliarization in translation, Huang Yushi’s translation did the best of the three. Through discussing the actual application and effect of defamiliarization in three translations of Heart of Darkness, the thesis aims to evoke a wider concern on the importance of defamiliarization in translation, so as to push forward a more complete and systematic development of defamiliarization in translation.