A Comparable Corpora-based Research On English Sentences In Outlaws Of The Marsh

The inclusion of Outlaws of the Marsh into the Chinese-English Library of Chinese Classics not only marks the recognition of its aesthetic value and authoritativeness, but also bestows it a mission for shaping relatively standard expression of "China English". The translated language of Outlaws of the Marsh, generated from the massive state-initiated translation program of Chinese classics, can be categorized as a type of China English with distinctive features in comparison with Standard English. Corpus-based translation studies provides a brand-new empirical approach for investigating this special translated language, and theoretical framework of National Translation Program is able to explain those language phenomena in a reasonable way.Researches both at home and abroad concerned with China English in Outlaws of the Marsh are not rare in the past decade, while empirical efforts focused at syntactic level are still far from satisfaction. This thesis, based on self-compiled bilingual parallel corpus of Outlaws of the Marsh, equipped with theories of Chinese-English comparative studies, makes tentative quantitative and qualitative analyses of special sentence structures. It also tries to give explanations to those language phenomena from both inter-translation and outer-translation perspectives. Finally, it is stated that China English is supposed to consolidate its own status of cultural subjectivity.This thesis contains five chapters. The first chapter mainly accounts for the background, purpose, significance, methodology and framework of the research. The second chapter consists of definition of "foreign translator", an introduction of Sidney Shapiro and three stages of his translation career. Then it gives a literature review of four English versions of Shui Hu Zhuan and current related academic researches, pointing out their deficiencies as well as the significance of Shapiro’s version in shaping "China English". The third chapter introduces theoretical basis, research areas and instruments of corpus-based translation studies, and then explains the compilation of parallel corpus and reasons for choosing British National Corpus as comparable corpus and Jackson’s version as comparable version. The fourth chapter is the main part which gives a detailed narration of the quantitative and qualitative investigation process on two types or three kinds of special sentence structures. After that, it tries to explain from both inter-translation and outer-translation perspectives. The fifth chapter first summarizes findings and limitations of the research and puts forwards the necessity and feasibility of establishing cultural subjectivity of China English.This research confirms that English sentences of Outlaws of the Marsh display paratactic and antithetical features of Chinese sentences, manifesting characteristics of the modes of thinking of Chinese people. It also appeals that translators involved in translation practice of Chinese classics should first recognize the respect the cultural subjectivity of China English and then put it into real practice consciously.