A Comparative Study On Two English Versions Of Journey To The West From Translation Narrative Perspectives

The outbound advent of Chinese traditional culture is conducive to the promotion of China’s cultural soft power on the world stage.The most representative works of Chinese traditional culture are the four masterpieces(A Dream of Red Chamber,The Romance of the three Kingdoms,Journey to the West,and All Men are Brothers),among which Journey to the West is very attractive thanks to its genre.However,Journey to the West firstly came out as episodes translation in the western world,but soon became renowned.For a comparative study this dissertation chooses Anthony C.Yu’s English version,published successively by the University of Chicago Press from 1970 to 1983,and W.J.F.Jenner’s English version,published by the Foreign Language Press between 1984 and 1986,both of which are well-known as the most complete translated versions of the Chinese classic Journey to the West.Based on Mona Baker’s translation narrative theory,this dissertation conducts a comparative study of these two English versions.Firstly,according to the classification of Mona Baker’s translation narrative theory,the contents of the translation are divided into two categories: ontological narratives and public narrative.Secondly,analysis on these two translators’ narrative behavior is made with the help of four narrative features of Mona Baker’s translation narrative theory.Thus,the translator’s subjectivity and inter-subjectivity can be reflected through the deployment of translation narrative acts and relevant linguistic devices and the affects between target language readers and the source text can be revealed.By means of this comparative study,it is found that these two versions somehowboth fail to convey the source text culture in the target text through narrative communication or lack of the literary and artistic charm of the source text.Nonetheless,Anthony C.Yu and W.J.F.Jenner highlight the translator’s subjectivity and inter-subjectivity in their narrative behavior during the translation process.Their narrative behavior lays a solid foundation for the achievement of cross-cultural communication between the readership and the source text.Last but not least,this article confirms that Mona Baker’s translation narrative theory can guide the functioning of translator’s subjectivity and inter-subjectivity,resolving the "conflict" between the source text and the target text during their narrative translation,so that the target text will not be unduly short of the source text’s literary and artistic charm while achieving the ideal of cross-cultural communication.This dissertation is divided into five chapters.The first chapter is an introduction,the main content including the research background,research significance,research methods,and research questions and objectives.The second chapter is literature review,which is to summarize and review the previous studies on theories and texts.The third chapter is the theoretical framework of translation narrative,including the basic concepts,narrative classification and narrative characteristics.The fourth chapter is a specific comparative analysis of the two English versions,analyzing the translator’s narrative behavior through examples,verifying their narrative effect and exploring the translator’s subjectivity and inter-subjectivity through linguistic levels,for instance,word,sentence and text.The last chapter is a summary of the whole research.Firstly,it finds that the research questions are solved.Secondly,it summarizes the research findings,and finally,it shows the prospect of the future development of this research.