A Text Functionalist Approach To Foreignization In Literary Translation

Drawing from Newmark’s text functionalist theory and its rules over different text types, this paper attempts to explore, via examples from the English edition of Ch’ien Chung-shu’s Fortress Besieged, the literary text as a kind of expressive text and the way foreignization strategies can be applied to the rendering of such texts. The case study in this paper is grouped under successful foreignization and unsuccessful foreignization. Successful foreignization is analyzed in terms of text types, style and strategies, whereas unsuccessful foreignization is addressed with particular attention to myriad factors including the translator’s misreading, the acceptability of the reader, and difference in cultural and linguistic contexts. This paper argues that with booming development of the world culture and economy, the foreignization strategy would be a foreseeable tendency in that it can reduce cultural distortion, heighten readers’ curiosity and foster the cultural diversity of the target language. However, foreignization strategy alone cannot serve as an antidote to all the ills in literary translation, for issues like misreading, cultural and linguistic contexts and acceptability on the part of target readers ask strongly of a literal translation model supported by free translation where are appropriate. By nuanced analysis of examples from Fortress Besieged, this paper aims to shed light on translator’s choices, especially the application of the foreignization strategies in literary translation. More importantly, by exemplifying the pros and cons of foreignization strategy, it seeks to be conducive to the English translation of Chinese literary works and hopefully, to the spread of Chinese culture to the international communities.