A Comparative Study On The Three Translations Of Call To Arms From The Perspective Of Language Tension

Lu Xun is the most prominent writer in twentieth century as well as the pioneer of the modern Chinese literature. Chairman Mao has ever praised that Lu Xun represents the vast majority of the nation and leads the direction of Chinese new culture. Lu Xun's novels are collected into three volumes: Call to Arms, Wandering and Old Tale Retold, among which, Call to Arms is the most prevailing one. It collects 14 novels including A Madman's Diary, The True Story of Ah Q, Kong Yiji, etc., all of which portray the lowest low-lives under the oppression of feudalism and imperialism, and arouse people's awareness of revolution as well as encourage the revolutionaries to cry out and fight fearlessly. Although many scholars devote themselves to studies of translations of Lu Xun's novels, there is little to set step on language tension. Language tension refers to the contradictory but complementary forces existing between at least two elements in a literary work, which generates a multidimensional opposite-in-stable equilibrium, expands the meaning potential and arouses readers' imagination for thorough comprehension. Among all the translations, the Yangs', Lyell's and Lovell's translations are the most influential. Thus, this study will analyze language tension of these three translations in the following aspects:1. Semantic tension: including graphological, rhetorical and register levels. In graphological level, language tension mainly concerns capitalization, italicization, punctuation and spelling; in rhetorical level, tension regards to the various figures of speech such as metaphor, irony, hyperbole, etc.; and in register level, tension relates to the alternation of registers.2. Rhythmic tension: including punctuation, sentence structure and sentence length. Through the application of punctuation, parallel, self-questioning-and-self-answering or coordinated constructions, and variation between long and short sentences, translators can either accelerate or decelerate the reading pace and reveal emotions of characters.This paper concludes that language tension in Lyell's translation is the most prominent, and then comes Lovell's, and the Yangs' comes the last. Lyell focuses not only on semantic tension, but also on rhythmic tension. By utilizing deliberate graphological deviation, various figures of speech, alternation of registers, and shift of reading-speed, he represents Lu Xun's writing style thoroughly in his vivid expressions. Lovell emphasizes more on aesthetic choice of words and applies more dashes to highlight the indicated key-points. The Yangs insist on faithfulness to the original content in natural and plain languages without translator's intervention.