A Narratological Approach To Eileen Chang's Self-translation

As a renowned Chinese writer, Eileen Chang is undoubtedly one of the most prominent stars in the sky of the literary world. Since she is acknowledged by Chih-tsing Hsia in the 1960s, Chang's works are widely appreciated by many readers and researchers. In 2010, two of Chang's posthumous novels entitled The Fall of the Pagoda and The Book of Change are published; Chang continues to write and tell her own story in a surprising way. So far, too much attention has been paid to Chang's Chinese works, and a few researches are conducted on Chang's self-translation. On the basis of narratology, this study aims to conduct a case survey over The Rouge of the North, one of the novels both authored and self-translated by Eileen Chang. Through an in-depth analysis of the approaches adopted by Chang in her self-translation, this research further probes into the aesthetic effects of self-translation and justification for the corresponding translation approaches.The previous researches on Chang's self-translation mainly resort to some traditional translation theories and cultural theories so as to find the motivations lurking behind the translation strategies Chang uses. That is, on one hand, previous researchers have summarized some features of Chang's self-translation, and this is fundamental to further relevant researches; on the other hand, there are many other theories that can be and have not been applied to the studies of Eileen Chang's self-translations. For the purpose of evaluating the importance of Chang's self-translations from narratological perspective, this study chooses The Rouge of the North and its Chinese version entitled Yuannii怨女(Embittered woman) as subjects. Moreover, the research takes the theory of narratology as the theoretical framework and makes a comparative reading on the two versions of the novel. In this context, the representative examples are sorted out under the category of three translation approaches, which are further classified according to narratology so as to facilitate the discussions of the aesthetic effect of Chang's self-translation.The finding of the research is that, Chang's self-translation distinguishes itself from other-translation in that the translation approaches she adopts are more flexible and consistent in light of her narrative ideas. She uses three kinds of translation approaches, i.e. rewriting, reconstruction and reduplication, each of which gives rise to different aesthetic effects. Specifically speaking, rewritings are classified into the refilling of narrative blanks, the adjustment of narrative perspective, narrative reordering and the extension of narrative pause. On the whole, it can be concluded that Chang elevates the aesthetic effects of the original and re-characterizes the protagonists in her novel through self-translation. Moreover, by studying the motivations behind Chang's self-translation approaches, this research also singles out the factors that influence Chang's choice of translation approaches. They are her tri-identity (author, translator and reader), her narrative philosophy and her reader-centered writing conception.The first and foremost implication of this research is that it proves the possibility of studying self-translation in terms of narratology, a kind of literary theory. Also, the study provides translators of Chang's works with a feasible reference method, taking into account Chang's approaches when doing the translation.