On Fiction Translation From The Narratological Perspective

Lu Xun, the father of modern Chinese fiction, has created many novels toexpose the weak points of Chinese modern countrymen and try to change thenational spirit. Ah Q Zheng Zhuan is regarded as one of his remarkable works for itsprofound social influence in the spiritual aspect and its impressive narrativetechniques and unique narrative language. It was created in1921, first published inthe Supplement to Morning News and then included in Lu Xun’s fiction collectionNa Han. It is Lun Xun’s only medium-length novel, reflecting the special political,economical and cultural background.Since the1920s, Lu Xun’s novel has been translated in many foreign languages.The True Story of Ah Q by George Kin Leung is the first English version of Ah QZheng Zhuan, which was published in1926by the Commercial Press. Since then,more and more English translations of Lu Xun’s short stories have appeared, whichprovide rich materials for fiction translation studies of Lu Xun’s works. There arequite a few articles to make a comparative study between different English versionsof Lu Xun’s short stories. However, the academic field seems to overlook thecomparative study between the source text and the translation, especially in light ofnarratology, which can help to evaluate the representation of the narrative features inthe translation. Meanwhile, the comparative studies on the C-E translation of LuXun’s short stories mainly focus the versions by Yang Hsien-yi&Gladys Yang andWilliam Lylle. Julian Lovel has published the latest translation version of Ah QZheng Zhuan in2009, which as far as this thesis reveals, has not obtained too muchattention in academic research with only11articles and2theses. And no researcheshave been done on this version from the perspective of narratology.This thesis attempts to compare and analyze the source text and the target text ofAh Q Zheng Zhuan with Julian Lovell’s version as the object and the narratologicaltheory as the tool. It will center on the “narrative type”, involving three specificaspects:“narrative point of view”,“modes of speech” and “narrator’s commentary” to see whether the translation has successfully represented the narrative features aswell as illustrate the impact of the transferences or variations in the translationimposed on the narrative effect and aesthetic values of the source text.Ah Q Zheng Zhuan is highly valued for its narrative techniques and uniquenarrative language which help enhance the thematic significance and aesthetic effectof the story. Therefore, in order to achieve the functional equivalence, the translatorshould represent those features as many as possible.Through the comparative study of the source text and the translation, it can beconcluded that Julian Lovell’s translation has generally represented the originalnarrative features but with a certain percentage of variations due to some reasons.The overall aesthetic values and narrative style have been reserved. Since there arefew studies concerning the translation criticism of Ah Q Zheng Zhuan from thenarratological perspective, this thesis intends to reveal the thematic, cultural andartistic reproduction in Lovell’s English version in light of narratology and instillnew insights into the fiction translation studies.