A Literary Stylistic Approach To The Translation Of Free Indirect Discourse In To The Lighthouse

Characters’ speech/thought presentation in novels is deemed as an important instrument for characterization and plot development. The relation between speech/thought and its presentation modes is the same with that between content and linguistic forms. As far as the same speech/thought is concerned. different presentation modes can convey different stylistic effects. Traditional fiction translation pays more heed to the rendering of speech/thought itself. Whether the content of speech/thought is rendered accurately or not in the target language is valued. However. the presentation modes. the vehicles of speech/thought are liable to be neglected. Accordingly. the phenomenon of "deceptive equivalence" in fictional translation comes into being unwittingly.In view of this. it is necessary to apply literary stylistics to the translation of speech/thought presentation modes in novels as literary stylistics is mainly concerned about how the writer’s intentionally selected verbal choices contribute to the thematic significance and aesthetic effects by means of modern linguistics. Besides. it can help the translators better grasp the linguistic forms. in which the literariness resides.As one of the representative works by the English novelist Virginia Woolf (1882-1941). To the Lighthouse employs a body of Free Indirect Discourse (FID) to present characters’words and thoughts. Over the past20years, the explorations into Woolf’s work at home and abroad are mainlv concentrated on three fields: the theory of novels. the creation practice as well as the feminist literary criticism. The study on her work from the angle of translation theory and practice is less touched upon.Based on Leech and Short’s classification of speech/thought presentation modes, this thesis focuses on the translation of FID by doing the case study on the English novel To the Lighthouse and its two Chinese versions (Qu Shijing’s version and Ma Ainong’s version) from the perspective of literary stylistics. Through comparative study. the thesis makes an attempt to examine whether cases of FID in the original are retained in two translation versions. analyze how translators’ presences change the feel of FID and summarize the corresponding requirements for the translators which provide future references for the translation of FID from English to Chinese.Through the comparative analysis of the original by Virginia Woolf and two Chinese translation versions by Qu Shijing and Ma Ainong, it is found out that two translation versions fail to retain FID in some cases in the target language. On the one hand. the colloquial style of FID is changed into the elevated and objective style of narrative discourse; on the other hand. substitution of the third person pronouns is bound to spoil the stylistic effects of FID since the third person pronouns are not only important linguistic indices of FID in English but also significant indicators to distinguish Free Direct Discourse (FDD) and FID in Chinese.