Functions Of Inversion In Text Construction In Novel Translation

Novels are typical literary texts whose values lie not only in the contents of the texts but also in the ways the texts are constructed.San Guo Yan Yi,a classic Chinese novel,attracts numerous readers,and it has also been translated into many languages.Researches on the translation of San Guo Yan Yi have also been carried out,and some remarkable achievements have been made.But many researches just focus on analyzing the translation of particular words,phrases,sentences or the style,while ignoring some problems at the textual level caused by the differences in text construction between Chinese and English.However,there are great differences in text construction between English and Chinese,which can bring difficulties for translators.Therefore,the translator needs to make some adjustments in re-establishing cohesion and making the information flow naturally in the target text in some cases.Inversion,is a device used to reorder sentence constituents,which can alter the prominence of information.It can be a regulator of information distribution,which leads us to put emphasis on the more important information and thus comprehend the whole text.Therefore,from the perspective of texture,this thesis picks some inverted structures in the three versions of San Guo Yan Yi translated by C.H.Brewitt-Taylor,Moss Roberts and Yu Sumei,compares the differences in using inversion and explores the inversion's functions in text construction,hoping to provide a new angle for text construction in future novel translation.Through comparison and analysis,this thesis finds that inversion mainly displays two functions: the emphatic function and the cohesive function.The former is achieved via unmarked and marked information focus,and the latter is shown by non-structural cohesion and structural cohesion.