A Study On The Reproduction Of Defamiliarization Devices In The Translations Of Su Tong's Works

The defamiliarization theory is first brought up by Shklovsky in his treatise published in 1917.According to Shklovsky,literature distinguishes itself from non-literature because of its literariness,which means the uniqueness of literary language.This kind of uniqueness is manifested through artistic treatment—to deliberately make the language roughened and difficult in order to obscure its meaning,impede the readers' perception and arouse their artistic sensation.Shklovsky uses the term defamiliarization to describe this process,and holds that the purpose of literature is to break down the over-automatized thinking and recover people's acute perception,so as to force them to gain new findings and experiences even from the familiar surroundings.Therefore,it can be assumed that defamiliarization is the essence of literature,and must be given considerable attention in the studying and translating of literature.But it should be pointed out that there is still no consensus on the definition of defamiliarization in translation,and many identify defamiliarization with foreignization strategy,overlooking the fact that defamiliarization is a concept in literary theory but can also be enlightening when applied in literary translation studies.Thus this thesis will take defamiliarization as a theoretical support instead of a translation strategy to explore the literary forms in the ST and the TT,discussing how the defamiliarization devices of the ST are represented in translations.As an avant-garde writer,Su Tong's defamiliarized writing not only represents the literariness,but also its avant-gardism.Therefore,studying the translation of the defamiliarized features in Su Tong's writings can help find out if the avant-gardist features can be reproduced in translations,and if the artistic value can be recreated.With respect to that,this thesis chooses Su Tong's two full-length novels and three novellas as well as their corresponding English versions as data sources,and carries out a discussion from the phonetic,lexical,syntactic and textual level,aiming to find out how the defamiliarization devices are represented in the translations.The study shows that in Su Tong's writings,the phonetic defamiliarization can be demonstrated by the use of assonances,homophones,onomatopoeias and doggerel.The defamiliarization on the lexical level mainly refers to the unconventional diction and collocation,as well as the novel and unnatural rhetoric devices.Syntactic defamiliarization can be found in the over-long or fragmentary sentences,the fixed sentence patterns and parallel structures.As for the textual level,the defamiliarization in narrative is best represented by the unusual use of punctuation and typographical oddities.Through a comparative study of the data collected between the original and their translations,it can be found that the reproduction of the defamiliarization devices fall into the following categories:1)the defamiliarization devices are fully reproduced in translations;2)the defamiliarization devices are partly reproduced in translations;3)the defamiliarization devices get familiarized or conventionalized in translations.The study also finds out that the translators can recognize the defamiliarized features of the original texts,and can reproduce them through an imitation of the original writing,with the help of some translation skills,such as conversion of word classes,substitution,annotation,necessary addition and simplification and so on.But at the same time,owing to the gap between Chinese and English language,as well as the translator's choice,some defamiliarized features are conventionalized in translations,thus undermining the original style and weakening the avant-gardist features to some degree.Through the analyses of examples,the study intends to provide possible avenues to translate defamiliarization devices employed in avant-garde writings,but it can also be inferred that the loss of defamiliarized features in the translation process is unavoidable.The translator should neither go too far to pursue the complete and full reproduction of the original defamiliarization devices blindly,nor discard and give up the translation of the defamiliarized features.Instead,the translator should fully display subjectivity,and strike a balance so as to be faithful to the original style while assuring the acceptability and readability of the target texts.