| Explicitation,which has long been studied as an important constituent of translation universals,means to make the implicit information in the source text explicit in the target text and/or to enhance the cohesion level in the target text.It plays an important role in the exploration of characteristics of translated languages and language contact,but most previous studies remain on the synchronic level,only focusing on the description of the features in a certain period.Synchronic descriptive research has its limitations.For instance,being able to describe the phenomenon,features and representations of explicitation at a certain period,it cannot observe the diachronic changes of explicitation,therefore unable to explore the evolution of explicitation and rules of language development.However,rational explanations to phenomena,namely the motivations,should be given in the end after descriptive research.Diachronic materials can be collected for the construction of large-scale diachronic corpora or composite corpora,to investigate the evolution process of translated languages,and the motivations of these evolutions.This thesis reveals that the three translations,respectively by Zhao Yuanren in 1922,Guan Shaochun & Zhao Mingfei in 1981,and Wu Juntao in 2016,do differentiate from one another in terms of the four indicators for grammatical explicitation chosen for this study,namely,the length of texts,the average paragraph length,the average sentence length and the ratio of personal pronouns,as well as three indicators for semantic explicitation,such as ratio of interjections,verbs "ask" and "reply" in the direct speech,and gender explicitation in the word "cook".Seldom studied before,gender explicitation is categorized into semantic explicitation in this thesis for the meaning and the gender of certain characters in this novel is made explicit through adopting hyponyms to replace the original word in the translation.In general,the explicitation tendency is stronger in Zhao Yuanren's version in 1922,compared with the Guan Shaochun & Zhao Mingfei's version in 1981 and the Wu Juntao's version in 2016.The specific differences among the three translations include:1)In the overall features,typically suggested by length of texts,average paragraph and sentence length,the explicitation degree decreases from 1922 to 1981 yet increases from 1981 to 2016.2)Personal pronouns on the whole show increasingly stronger tendency in the diachronic way,with the third person pronouns topping,followed by the first person and the second person pronouns.Singular forms show higher degree than plural forms in all the three genres of person pronouns.Among the third person pronouns,"it" shows stronger tendency than "she","he" and then "they".3)The degree of interjections increases after decreasing,reaching its summit in Wu Juntao's version,but verbs "say","ask" and "reply" show the opposite tendency,with the climax at Guan& Zhao's version,followed by Zhao's and then Wu's version.4)Gender explicitation is only found in the first two versions,typically in the word "cook",rather than in Wu's version.Possible motivations of the diachronic changes in explicitation can be discussed from three perspectives: differences in language and cultural systems,translating purpose and translator's management of risk.The huge differences between Chinese and English language and culture necessitate translators to adopt explicitation strategies to bridge the gap.Besides,the translating purpose,which was proposed in the preface of each version,also poses influences on explicitation degree.When encountering translation risks,translators will employ different techniques to mitigate or transfer them to achieve the communicative aim and mutual benefits.However,risks do not remain the same for different translators,which gives rise to the different levels of explicitation. |
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