A Study Of The Translation Of The Idioms In Shuihu Zhuan From A Perspective Of Defamiliarization

The concept "defamiliarization" was firstly put forward by the representative of Russian formalism Victor Shklovsky in 1917. He claimed that the existence of art was to make people perceive things instead of recognizing them, and the techniques of art was to make objects strange, increase the complexity of forms and the difficulty of perception. Russian formalism held that writers should employ defamiliarized language to prolong the reading process and endow readers with a new perspective when they read works of literature and art. The defamiliarization in translation is the extension of defamiliarization theory in the translation field. The essential idea of defamiliarizing translation strategy is that translators should discover the unfamiliar, the exotic expressions and the fascinating specificities of the original text deliberately and maintain them in the target text in order to convey the unusual beauty and exotic flavor to target readers. Generally speaking, defamiliarization theory is a new translation perspective and for a long time scholars have not paid much attention to this new field. The purpose of the thesis is inspiring scholars to pay much attention to the analysis of defamiliarization theory through discussing Shuihu Zhuan and Pearl’s translation All Men Are Brothers and promote the development of the defamiliarization theory.Shuihu Zhuan, one of the four Chinese classical novels, has got great artistic achievement in Chinese literature history. It is be loved by readers no matter at home and aboard because of the vulgar language and the vivid portraiture. The idioms of Shuihu Zhuan are the mirrors of the environment, life, history, and culture of people in Song Dynasty. They are the crystallization of the common people of Song Dynasty and express the truth and philosophy of their lives. Pearl tried her best to transmit the taste of the idioms to the Westerners.As the first person who transmitted Shuihu Zhuan to the West. Pearl’s All Men Are Brothers is focused widely by the scholars no matter at home and aboard. The examples of idioms in this thesis come from Shuihu Zhuan and AH Men Are Brothers and the idioms are divided into three categories from the artistic characteristic aspect, culture-loaded aspect, practical guidance aspect and there are several small categories under the big categories. On the other hand, the thesis is forward to study how the translator transmit her translation strategy to entertain the foreign readers the greatest enjoyment and how the translator transmit the unfamiliar and exotic expressions and the fascinating specificities to the target readers. At last, the thesis concludes that the defamiliarization language is a constant driving force to maintain the literary charisma.