Fiction Translation From The Perspective Of Antoine Berman's "Negative Analytic" Theory

French translation theorist Antoine Berman detects a common deforming system in fiction translation.A translated work often deforms to attune itself to the target language culture and therefore risks ethnocentrism.Berman calls his method of analyzing deformation tendencies in translation as "negative analytic." Such deformations tend to erase what is "foreign" in the original fiction.Based on his experience of literature translation,Berman summarizes twelve deforming tendencies.As a critical commentary on my own translation of the first chapter of Angela Carter's novel Several Perceptions,this thesis expounds how Berman's "negative analytic" approach and awareness of the deformation tendencies can effectively guide fiction translation at lexical,sentential and discoursal levels.At the lexical level,translation is prone to qualitative impoverishment and clarification.Berman argues that translators should keep the iconic and sonorous richness of words intact in translation and avoid clarifying what is not explicit in the original text.At the sentential level,translation is susceptible to rationalization and ennoblement,which often lead to domestication motivated by norms of the targeted language and by the translators'personal judgement and subjective aesthetics while disrespecting the original text.At the discoursal level,a translation tends to spoil the source text's rhythms and underlying networks of signification.A conscientious translator should therefore pay more attention to the original work's narrative rhythm and intertextuality.The present study concludes that Berman's "negative analytic" theory can help translators identify deformation tendencies preying on words,sentences and discourses in translation,so that translators can consciously avoid eliminating the foreign in the original text and remain faithful to the original.