The Acceptability And Adequacy Of Li Wenjun's Translation Of The Sound And The Fury And Its Journey In China

According to Even-Zohar's polysystem theory,a series of different but interlinked systems compose culture and other social symbolic phenomena.The polysystem emphasizes historical and cultural factors in translation production,which promotes the cultural turn of translation studies.William Faulkner is a master of the stream-of-consciousness novel,and The Sound and the Fury is a classic in western modernist literature.It has been translated into many Chinese versions,among which Li Wenjun's translation in 1984 is the most influential one.In the past five years,new Chinese versions have been emerging.Fang Bolin's translation in 2015 is of high quality.Based on the polysystem theory,this paper analyzes the acceptability and adequacy of Li Wenjun's translation,in comparison with Fang Bolin's version,and the novel's journey in China.First,detailed annotation and explicitation strategies in Li's version are analyzed through close reading,and the reasons behind Li's emphasis on acceptability are explained.Second,reproduction of the language style and the sentence pattern in Li's translation and the reasons for adequacy are analyzed.Finally,Chinese comments on The Sound and the Fury in different times are analyzed to show the book's journey in China.The conclusion is that Li's translation is both acceptable and adequate.The reasons behind this is the need to introduce new literature creation methods at that time.Li had to introduce the stream-of-consciousness technique and the multiple-perspective narrative of The Sound and the Fury,meanwhile he need to ensure the acceptability of the work.Besides,the acceptability and adequacy also has something to do with the translation belief and ability of the translator.This conclusion also demonstrates the applicability and limit of the polysystem theory.