Typological Analysis Of Metalanguage And Its Translation

Different from “object language” referring to objects,“metalanguage” is a kind of language used to describe language itself.In some metafictional novels,metalanguage plays a crucial role in the enquiry of the truthfulness of narration and in the encouragement of readers' thinking over the relationship between fiction and reality.Metafictional novels have a main story with a narrator's voice which is less prominent if in the third-person mode or which is just for the narration of the story if in the first-person mode,and some other parts with the narrator flaunting his/her existence by making comments on characters,his/her own story,and even other literary traditions.As most of the narratologists merely focus on narrative language in novels,metalanguage has not been paid much attention to,and its forms and functions in original texts to some extent fail to be re-presented in literary translation.Based on the study on metalanguage by Feng Zongxin,this paper systematically re-classifies metalanguage in narrative fiction as “metalanguage with meta-narrativity”,“meta-linguistic metalanguage” and “metalanguage as code”: metalanguage with meta-narrativity is language that makes statements about characters,plot and even the story itself;meta-linguistic metalanguage is language used to discuss or examine what has already stated in the novel;metalanguage as code is language that highlights the characters' discourse through stylistic methods,such as dialects,non-standard languages,and foreign languages.Each type of metalanguage complements or subverts the development of plot or the shaping of characters.Based on this classification and with the analysis of Chinese versions of three classic British novels of different eras,Northanger Abbey,The French Lieutenant's Woman and Atonement which are rich in metalanguage,this paper points out that metalanguage greatly challenges translation and literary translation should be more committed to the representation of metalanguage as well as the plot in a narrative text.