Chapter One Literature Review
1.1 Studies of Defamiliarization in Translation
Scholars noticed the literary term “defamiliarization” from the RussianFormalism and tried to adopt it to translation filed in the early period. And we canalso find some scholars ever shared similar views on it. Therefore, reviewing studiesof defamiliarization in translation can offer us an overall understanding about thedevelopment of this field, and give us insights about further space to be explored. Thispart makes a review of relevant studies of defamiliarization in translation both abroadand at home.
1.1.1 Studies of Defamiliarization in Translation Abroad
In the 1970s, some scholars of the early translation studies well-schooled in theRussian Formalism focused on literary analysis and applied defamiliarization totranslation studies, such as Levy, Miko and Popovic. These scholars stress theimportance of the ways thematic concepts are expressed in literature and thereproduction of these determining features in translation. They prescribe that theoriginal defamiliarization devices should be maintained, and “if existing devicescould be transposed in the second language, the translator needed to invent new ones”(Gentzler, 2004: 82). Levy privileged the formal features endowing a work with thequality of literariness and tried to maintain these defamiliarization devices intranslation to reach equivalent artistic effects. He tried to reproduce these literaryfeatures deciding the poeticity of the original by virtue of stylistic elements from thetarget language. However, too much emphasizing on form and stylistic featuresdeduce the content to be unstable. And translation becomes a process full ofcontradictions with its content inter-textually constructed. Besides, it is alsoimpossible to classify completely the original poetic features. Miko raised and defined“expressive categories” in 1970. He believes that it is expressive features thatconstruct a work s meaning and literariness and that these features can be determinedand translated to realize equivalent style and literariness in translation. Miko admittedthe impossibility of this task though he had done much work on it. ........................
1.2 Studies of Si Shi Yi Pao and Its English Translation
Mo Yan is a famous Chinese contemporary writer, whose achievement marks anoutstanding milestone in the progress of contemporary Chinese literature. His effortsand talent in writing have been widely accepted and appreciated; a proof can be seenfrom the awards he has won at home and abroad. For example, he has won the PremioNonino Award in 2005, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2012. Si Shi Yi Pao, oneof his representative works, was published in 2003, with which Mo Yan has gainedthe second Annual Outstanding Media Award for Chinese Literature in 2003. It wasalso one of the finalists for the seventh Mao Dun Literature Award. This novel isbased on the stories happened in a slaughter village and the twin city during thereform in the folk areas in 1990s, revealing the fierce contradiction betweentraditional folk culture and modern industrial civilization, as well as people s chaoticstate in ethical morals. Since this is an unavoidable matter the whole world has to facein the process of modernization, this book embraces Mo Yan s deep compassion, akey factor enabling his creation to “enter the eternal dimension even if he justdescribes some historical events” (Liu Zaifu, 2013: 40).
Studies of Si Shi Yi Pao are mainly from the perspective of literary studies, suchas the theme about desires and its literary techniques, but the total amount is ratherlower than studies of Mo Yan s other works. For example, Liu Xiang (2005) thinksthe fluent carnival narration forms the content and artistic appeal of this novel. Andthe author s narration about the themes: growth, loneliness, hunger and etc arestrongly thought-provoking. Zhang Ruiying (2016) analyzes the mixed narration cluesand the grotesque aesthetics of the narration structure, and he explores the settings ofthe Slaughter village and meat-eating festival, so as to reveal the author s reflectionson the world of lust. Lin Yingqiu (2018) explores Mo Yan s folk stance in writing theimages and events of folk society, and argues that Mo Yan uses the crazy narration offreedom and folk colloquial narration to create a bountiful space to embraceeverything, which forms defamiliarization aesthetics and carnival effects.
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Chapter Two Theoretical Framework
2.1 Liu Miqing’s Translation Aesthetics
Translation aesthetic theories appeared in 1990s, with the basic rules ofaesthetics to analyze, explain and solve the aesthetic matters in translation, theymainly explore the aesthetic constituents of translation aesthetic object, aestheticsubject and the relation between them, so as to provide measures to reproduce theoriginal aesthetic information and offer a practical guide in translation” (FangMengzhi, 2004: 296). Absorbing traditional Chinese aesthetic thoughts and translationtheories, and taking in basic concepts and structure of western aesthetics, ProfessorLiu Miqing has built the framework of Chinese contemporary translation aesthetics,making translation aesthetics more scientific and systematic and promoting itsdevelopment greatly. He thinks that literary translation, apart from its basicrequirements in conveying original meaning correctly and expressing it appropriately,demands reproduction of original aesthetic factors. Therefore, translation isessentially an art of aesthetic reproduction, and calls for the translator to appreciateoriginal aesthetic factors and reproduce them in optimized ways. Professor LiuMiqing s translation aesthetics reviews aesthetic origin in translation theories,analyzes characteristics of translation aesthetic subject and translation aesthetic object,and also explores aesthetic reproduction in translation.
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2.2 Reproduction of Defamiliarization under TranslationAesthetics
According to the Russian Formalism, people can hardly notice and appreciate thebeauty of things once being familiar to them. Victor Shkolovsky believes that “weknow things in front of us, but cannot realize their existence, and that s why we shareno ideas about them. In the field of art, liberating things from people s automaticperception is realized by all kinds of measures” (Liu Zongci, 1994: 11). The measuresmentioned here are measures of defamiliarization. The adoption of defamiliarizationin literary creation aims to break down conventional literary techniques and refreshreaders automatic perception in an unexpected way, so as to enhance the literarinessof works and prolong readers focuses during their reading. Therefore, thedefamiliarization created by the author is endowed with great aesthetic effects andliterary values. And how to reproduce the original defamiliarization in literarytranslation greatly influences the aesthetic values of the target text.
From Professor Liu Miqing s translation aesthetics, literary translation isessentially an aesthetic process, during which the translator actively appreciates theaesthetic information of the original and tries to reproduce it in translation.Defamiliarization, as an essential measure the author applies to ensure the aestheticinformation and literariness of literary works, is sure to be reproduced in translation.Therefore, this thesis tries to explore the reproduction of original defamiliarization intranslation under Professor Liu Miqing s translation aesthetics.
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Chapter Three Reproduction of Defamiliarization at Linguistic Levelin POW! ................... 20
3.1 Reproduction of Deviated Collocation of Words.........................20
3.1.1 Imitation of Deviated Collocation of Modification-center Structure ...21
3.1.2 Imitation of Deviated Collocation of Subject-predicate Structure .......24
Chapter Four Reproduction of Defamiliarization at Cultural Level inPOW! .............................. 33
4.1 Reproduction of Folk Sayings ...............................33
4.1.1 Imitation of Folk Sayings.................................34
4.1.2 Omission of Folk Sayings.............................. 37
Chapter Four Reproduction of Defamiliarization at CulturalLevel in POW!
4.1 Reproduction of Folk Sayings
Folk sayings refer to “those fixed expressions that are popular among peoplewith great vividness and popularity” (Wen Duanzheng, 1989: 68). And restoring novellanguages to its original state and applying folk sayings to literature help to strengthenthe vitality of expressions and narrow the distance between literature and life.Therefore, it is one of the main sources of literariness in a novel (Zhang Yan, 2013:67). When talking about literary style, Mo Yan expresses that one factor making hiswriting different from other writers is that he applies folk sayings in his writing, for “agood literary work is sure to contain tamed folk sayings” (Mo Yan, 2019: 5). Thesefolk sayings originated in certain area are fresh and vivid, and bear strong culturalfeatures. Therefore, the adoption of them attracts readers focuses and updates theirperception about literary language, and the reproduction of them in translation mattersa lot.
When arguing that the artistic characteristics of literary language are created toprolong readers perception, Victor Shkolovsky holds that some writers employed folksayings as a special process to enhance the appeal of expressions and gives anexample of Pushkin s creation (Shkolovsky, 1989: 8-9). In Si Shi Yi Pao, folk sayingsused as a major defamiliarization device enrich the cultural sense and strengthen theaesthetic effects of this novel, as well as fit the status of characters. Some are evenunfamiliar to many Chinese readers, let alone to target readers. These folk sayingsmake literary expressions more impressive and help to arouse readers curiosityduring their appreciating these defamiliarized expressions. Howard Goldblatt notesthe importance of reproduction of original folk sayings in translation, and thinks that“the folk color is the eternal appeal of literary works and difficult to translate”(Goldblatt, 2014: 40). In the trans-cultural process of translation, some folk sayings inSi Shi Yi Pao are acceptable for target readers due to the commonalities of human slanguages and cultures, but some are hard to be understood. In translation, thetranslator should empathize with the aesthetics of original folk sayings and try toovercome the major emphatical obstacle of culture to reproduce them.
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Conclusion
In literary creation, writers adopt defamiliarization to realize the literariness ofworks. Defamiliarization means breaking down conventional expressions and forms,so as to renew readers automatic reading experience and attract them to appreciatethese designed reading obstacles out of writers ingenious aesthetic pursuit. Therefore,the reproduction of original defamiliarization directly determines the quality andliterariness of translation. This thesis reviews studies of defamiliarization intranslation, and finds that relevant researches on measures to reproduce originaldefamiliarization and factors hindering its full reproduction are still insufficient. Andit chooses Si Shi Yi Pao and its English version translated by Howard Goldblatt toanalyze the reproduction of original defamiliarization in translation from theperspective of Professor Liu Miqing s translation aesthetics.
Defamiliarization in Si Shi Yi Pao is mainly embodied in two aspects: deviatedcollocation, over-loaded sentence structure and parallelism at linguistic level, and folksayings and parody of culture-loaded expressions at cultural level. When reproducingthe major defamiliarization at linguistic level, Howard Goldblatt imitates originaldeviated collocation of words in translation by literal translation. As for over-loadedsentence structure, he conforms to the conventions of target language and changesoriginal sentence pattern into similar form, thus dynamically imitating originaldefamiliarization. And the translator imitates the syntactic characters of originalparallelism to reproduce its aesthetic effects. In terms of reproduction ofdefamiliarization at cultural level, the translator needs to fight against emphaticalobstacle of culture. Howard Goldblatt imitates most folk sayings acceptable for targetreaders and maintains the fresh cultural images in translation by foreignization. Whenthe original cultural images are absent in target cultural system, he omits these folksayings for the benefit of the acceptability of translation.
reference(omitted)