The Reframing Translation Of Fortress Besieged Based On Mona Baker's Narrative Theory

In 2006,Mona Baker systematically proposed the narrative theory in her monograph Translation and Conflict and concluded that narratives can not only represent reality but also construct the reality.Different from previous studies on narrative as can be found in narratology or linguistics,Baker‘s insightful theory approaches the notion of narrative from social and communication perspectives,thus offering a new and interdisciplinary angle to investigate the way translation and interpreting are involved in the processes.However,the theory has so far been mostly applied to the political context in translation studies.There are few studies related to literary works.Wei Cheng,a representative satirical novel of Ch‘ien Chung-shu,has won worldwide acclamation ever since its publication.Jeanne Kelly and Nathan K.Mao jointly rendered it into English in 1979 and their joint work remains the only English version to date.Researchers have studied it from different perspectives,but no one has studied it from Mona Baker's narrative theory.Against this backdrop,the thesis aims to justify the applicability and explanatory power of Mona Baker‘s narrative theory in the translation study of literary works with a view to draw further implications for the translation of Chinese literary works as well as the translation quality evaluation.Lastly,the present study aims to deepen the understanding of Fortress Besieged from a new and insightful perspective and to find out its merits and demerits for future reference.Based on these objectives,the author raises the following research questions:1)How did the co-translators Kelly and Mao reframe the narratives in Fortress Besieged?2)What are the possible factors or reasons influencing the translators‘ adoption of these reframing strategies?3)What are the gains and losses in the process of reconstructing the new narratives in Fortress Besieged?In order to figure out the answers,the author carries out a qualitative method.By comparing the Chinese and English versions word for word and marking the cases where reframing strategies are adopted,the author has established a bilingual corpus and studied the marked cases in detail.After a thorough analysis and investigation,the author finds that there are both gains and losses in the reframing of the new narratives in the translated work.The reasons behind are multi-faceted.For one thing,cultural differences and translators‘ misinterpretations are the two main reasons accounting for translators‘ failure to retain some of the narratives in the original work.For another,translators‘ consciousness to introduce Chinese cultures is what makes them to opt for the foreignization-oriented reframing strategies featured by literal translation and annotations.In addition,the author also notes that Mona Baker‘s narrative theory is also of great theoretical and practical value to literary translation indeed.It can guide translation studies and help to evaluate translation practices.However,there are still some limitations.Scholars and researchers should set their sight on its limitations for its perfection in their future studies.