Functions Of Foregrounding In Text Construction In Prose Translation

Proses are typical literary texts whose values lie not only in the contents of the texts but also in the ways the texts are constructed. He Tang Yue Se, a classic in modern Chinese proses, attracts numerous readers for its enduring artistic charms and many translators have tried to translate this masterpiece into English. Researches on the translation of He Tang Yue Se are also carried out, with some remarkable achievements being made. But many researches just focus on analyzing the translation of particular words, phrases or sentences while ignoring some problems at the textual level due to the differences in text construction between the two languages.However, there are great differences in text construction between English and Chinese, which can bring difficulties for translators. Therefore, translators need to adjust their ways of constructing the target texts in translation so as to produce a target text with texture of its own. Foregrounding, an important feature of literary works, can play an important role in text construction by making readers focus not only on the content of texts, but also on their ways of construction. Yet there are few studies talk about its functions in text construction.Therefore, based on the Foregrounding Theory, the author of this thesis attempts to carry out a contrastive case study of the three versions of He Tang Yue Se translated respectively by Zhu Chunshen, Yang Xianyi & Gladys Yang, and Li Ming, analyzing how the three translators deal with information from the source text, comparing their differences in using foregrounding and exploring the influences on the construction of the three target texts due to these differences. After the analysis, this thesis concludes that foregrounding can be used to deal with information from the source text by narrowing down the differences in text construction between the two languages and contributing to the texture of the target text.