From Border Town To The World

In the process of Globalization, China hopes to promote cultural communication and complementation by translating Chinese literature abroad. Since the practice is beneficial to both China and the world, it has aroused much discussion on problems such as translating mode, the distinction between national literature and world literature et al.Jeffrey C. Kinkley’s Translation of Border Town was published as one of Chinese literary classics by Harper Collins Publishers in 2009. The translation’s pastoral narration influences readers from the urbanization and industrialization era deeply for two main reasons:the first comes from the profound literary value of the original work; the second lies in the translator’s practice of framing narratives in translation by reconstructing narrative features, promoting the translated text’s interaction with target context. And the framing practice is based on translator’s previous study of Shen Congwen with methods of mutual verification between literature and history, cross-cultural interpretation, and comparative study of writers and works.Shen Congwen frames an eternal chronotope by setting a closed place, using regressive structure and slowing down the narration speed. He fills the chronotope up by poetic description, visual scene, symbolic figure and image. The pastoral narration is actually an elegy implies negative effects of modernization by showing villagers’ purity and their harmonious life with nature. In his translation, Jeffrey C. Kinkley first rebuilds the eternal chronotope by leading readers to the closed place, emphasizing signs of story time and regressive structure with English grammar, indicating the novel’s historical time in detail. He then reproduce the artistic images of narrative by translating its instructing words clearly, highlighting villagers’characteristics, and explicating the cultural units. Besides, Jeffrey C. Kinkley introduces Shen Congwen and his pastoral narration in depth in the paratext based on his previous study, which guiding the readers to form the reality consciously. Relying on those efforts, Jeffrey C. Kinkley promotes Border Town’s interaction with target context.Jeffrey C. Kinkley has been studying Shen Congwen by means of China’s social culture and history since 1972, which helps much in his translation. The strategy of explanatory translation conveys Chinese culture effectively; since he considers each subjects’feelings in translating, the translated version will certainly promote the subjects’interactions; besides, he attaches importance to the two kinds of cultural cognition and tries his best to enhance the value of the text. The Sinologist with identities of multiculturality, intersubjectivity and interculturality make positive effects in the process of framing narratives in translation.The translation’s narrative interaction with target context can be a mark of successful one. The cooperation between sinologist, Chinese translator and scholars in literature will guarantee the translation in culture and narration; an assessment of the narratives in translation will help recognize different contexts’features and their intercultural parts; it also needs to keep constructing and updating translated Chinese literary classics, which not only helps to refresh Chinese image, but also contributes to the writing and updating of world literature.