On The Translation Of Twelfth Night:A Neo-aristotellan Rhetorical Perspective

In their translations of Twelfth Night,Zhu Shenghao and Liang Shiqiu display distinct styles in applying phonological,lexical,syntactic and textual devices.And their translations of the persuasive appeals used in the persuasion segments among the drama result in varying degrees of effectiveness,which evidently have impacted the conveyance of the original drama and the readers' or audience's understanding of the drama.But the rhetorical studies on this drama are largely the study of rhetorical devices rather than the real rhetorical translation studies.Neo-Aristotelian Rhetoric enriches the research angles of rhetoric and consists of language rhetoric and speech rhetoric.Language rhetoric takes phonological,lexical,syntactic and textual devices into consideration while speech rhetoric the three persuasive appeals: logos,ethos and pathos.Therefore,this thesis intends to make a comparative study on Zhu's and Liang's Chinese versions of Twelfth Night in terms of Neo-Aristotelian Rhetoric in an attempt to discuss the translators' translation styles and strategies,to find out the two versions' similarities and differences in promoting plots,shaping characters,highlighting dramatic conflicts and conveying emotions as well as the possible reasons for these differences.It is found that Zhu adopts to liberal transltion and his concise and smooth version is more suitable for theatrical performance.Liang prefers to literal transaltion and annotation.His version is more conservative and therefore appropriate to literary appeciation and research.The reasons for these differences lie in the translators' motivations and writing styles.The present study aims to extend the application of rhetorical theory to translation studies and enrich the comparative study of Twelfth Night's Chinese versions.Besides,the author tries to offer several suggestions for literary translation from the perspective of rhetoric.