On The Translation Of Humors In Fortress Besieged With Reference To G.steiner's Hermeneutic Translation Theory

Humors in Fortress Besieged are like pearls in a jewel that are inseparable from the whole text.Once removed,the value of the work,whether in terms of culture or art,indisputably,will be dwindled to a large extent.To be specific,when we strip humors from the whole story,what's left for us is no more than a simple and somehow plain picaresque novel.The humors that make readers either smile or burst into laugh have already attracted the attention of scholars at home and abroad.This dissertation analyzes the translation of humors in Fortress Besieged with reference to George Steiner's Hermeneutic translation motion theory.Under the guidance of the Fourfold Translation Motion Theory proposed by G.Steiner on the basis of philosophical hermeneutics,and taking Jeanne Kelly and Nathan K.Mao's translation of Fortress Besieged as the research object,this dissertation approaches the translation of humors in light of Steiner's four concrete translation steps—“trust”,“aggression”,“incorporation” and “compensation” so as to explore whether or how the humorous effect is preserved in the English version and how much room there remains for improvement for later versions.The research indicates that in the first place,the two translators both have faith in the selection of the original work and in their own linguistic and cultural competence,with a firm belief that the novel is of great artistic and cultural value.Then as for the second stage of “aggression”,through case study and analysis,this research finds that the translators invade into the work by the translation strategies of reconstruction,omission,amplification,conversion,replacement and rewriting,and that some humors are well tackled in this process.Then comes “incorporation”,which is divided into two parts—the incorporation of the meaning and the incorporation of the form of the original text.In the last move,the translators “compensate” the translation of humors in Fortress Besieged by the employment of adding annotations.To sum up,this dissertation,with reference to Steiner's four steps—“trust”,“aggression”,“incorporation” and “compensation”,attempts an effective research on the whole translation process of the translation of humors in Fortress Besieged.In the final analysis,this research arrives at a conclusion that humorous effect of the original work is largely conserved in its English version via translators' tactile utilization of various translation strategies and methods,embodied in the four steps of Steiner's Hermeneutic translation motion theory in different degrees as well,which enables the target readers to savor the work just like the original readers do.