Translation Strategies Of Foregrounded Language In And Then There Were None

The theory of "foregrounding" comes from western painting.Painters use the technique to make the people or object which needs to be highlighted prominent,while other things become the background.Since Russian Formalism and Prague Structuralism introduced the foregrounding theory to literature studies,many scholars such as Leech(1981),Halliday(1971)and Van Peer(1986),have greatly contributed the development of foregrounding theory.Since Professor Ye Zinan(2001)put forward the application of foregrounding to translation,the translation of foregrounded language has become a hot topic among researchers in China.However,as an important type of literature,few of them have focused on the translation of foregrounded language in crime fictions.As foregrounded language plays a significant role in plot development and characters'description,this thesis will focus on the translation of foregrounded language in And Then There Were None so as to do my bit to help forward the translation studies of crime fiction.This research takes And Then There Were None,a crime fiction written by Agatha Christie,as the research object.According to Leech's(1981)definition and classification of foregrounded language,the author classifies its foregrounded language and compares the source text with the Chinese version translated by De Wei(1980)so as to conclude proper translation strategies of certain kinds of foregrounded language.The following are research questions:(1)What kinds of foregrounded language are used frequently in And Then There Were None?(2)What translation strategy should we adopt when translating different foregrounding?(3)What's the function of different translation strategies in plot development and character description?It's concluded that the foregrounding in And Then There Were None can be divided into two categories:qualitative foregrounding and quantitative foregrounding.In the fiction,qualitative foregrounding involves lexical and semantic deviation and quantitative foregrounding contains repetition and parallel structures.In translating foregrounded language,translators can adopt three strategies:reserving foregrounding,restoring foregrounding and omitting foregrounding.When reserving foregrounding features,translators can directly transfer the source text.However,when direct transfer cannot reserve foregrounding features,translators should adopt the strategy of restoring foregrounding features.In And Then There Were None,translators mainly restore foregrounding by substitution and extension.However,because of the great differences between Chinese and English,some foregrounding features cannot be kept or restores.As a result,translators have to omit foregrounding.Shift and Paraphrase are used in sacrificing foregrounding features.Through the analysis,the thesis finds that reserving foregrounding feature is the best translation strategy which can not only preserve the writer's intention but also make readers experience the charm of foregrounded language.Restoring foregrounding is also a good choice which combines the source text with the target culture so the readers can think about the function of foregrounding but also have a good taste of culture.It's unavoidable that some foregrounding feature can't be reproduced because of differences between cultures.Omitting foregrounding feature in this situation will be a proper strategy.In conclusion,when translating foregrounded language of crime fiction,translators should recognize foregrounding and take the proper translation strategies so as to create the translated versions that match writer's intention and readers' reading experiences.