On Translation Of Autobiographies Written By Litterateurs From The Perspective Of Evidentiality

A defining characteristic of autobiographies is a narrator= experiencer relationship indicated in Lejeune's Autobiographical Pact.However,when an autobiography is translated,the translator's first-person narrative is at odds with the evidential stance from which he or she narrates.Two Chinese versions of A Movable Feast,an autobiography written by Hemingway who is one of the most prestigious litterateurs are chosen,the translators of which are Cai Jing and Tang Yongkuan.By studying evidentiality from systematic functional linguistics,the thesis is made on whether a translated autobiography written by litterateurs reveals a distance between the narrator and the autobiographical experiences being narrated,weakening a narrator = experiencer relationship and having an impact on the interpersonal metafunction.The distribution of main types of evidentials(the linguistic expressions of attitude towards knowledge)in the autobiography and their translations are first described.The thesis then makes further description on the translation of reported memories by examining the most frequently occurring cognitive verbs and the constructions that follow them.The translators' attitude and commitment are discussed.An analysis is then made on the translation of person-marking,highlighting the interpersonal relationship between translators and readers.The thesis then reveals a tendency towards a more frequent use of indirect evidentials,and a more frequent report of memories from a non-experiential stance in both Chinese versions of the autobiography.It also suggests a lower degree of commitment in the translations with cognitive verbs.Furthermore,Cai Jing fails to make a corresponding shift from first-person to the second-person narration.The findings are interpreted as a manifestation that the translational mode of consciousness in two Chinese versions is characterized by an indirect rather than direct evidential stance,weakening the narrator=experiencer relationship characteristic of a translated autobiography.The thesis then argues that the translators' decision-making,as well as positionality,can be studied from the perspective of evidentiality.Meanwhile,a Chinese translated autobiographical corpus can be constructed,so as to explore the universals of translation with the application of evidentiality.