The Transfer Of Prose Style——A Tentative Study Of James Legge's English Version Of Mencius

Prose style translation is a part of literary style translation. On the question of the translatability of literary style, people hold two different viewpoints. One is that it抯 possible to translate literary style. Many foreign and Chinese translators and translation theoreticians have advocated their translation principles for this A possibility. Their chief representatives are Alexander F. Tytler, Eugene A. Nida and Liu Zhongde. The other viewpoint is that it抯 impossible to translate literary style, due to the differences between English and Chinese. So far as prose style is concerned, the author of this thesis believes that by taking style as a whole, it抯 possible to translate prose style but the translatability is limited to a certain degree. There are several reasons listed in this thesis for this argument. For the possibility of translating prose style, the main reasoi~ lies in the similarities between English and Chinese. They are illustrated at the phonological, lexical and syntactic levels. Nevertheless, the translatability of prose style is limited to a certain degree, as there are language differences between English and Chinese at these levels. These differences are clearly reflected between English and Chinese in customs. life style, ways of thinking which make difficult the translation of prose style. So the translatability of prose style is limited to some extent. In order to make this thesis more convincing and more acceptable, the author chooses the great classical Chinese work Mencius and its English version made by James Legge as a sample and makes a thorough and comprehensive contrastive study of the source text and the target text under the guidance of Liu Zhongde抯 principle 搕抜J?closeness in style). Here are some reasons for the preference of this principle. First, Tytler抯 principle, 搕he style and manner should be of the same character with that of the original?and Eugene A. Nida抯 principle of 揹ynamic equivalence?are too ideal and too perfect to achieve. Second, Yan Eu抯 (~~) 揺legance?is too narrow in domain and not suitable for the translation of informal ii 憕? MASTER S THESIS or colloquial prose. Third, 揷loseness?is the most objective and practical principle in analyzing the translation of prose style. Therefore, the author adopted the last principle in this paper. Generally, the style of Mencius is formal and eloquent, which is mainly reflected at the three different levels: phonology, lexicon and syntax. At the phonological level, the stylistic features of the source text are mainly revealed in the balance of rhythm and rhymed words. The balance of rhythm refers to the use of rhythm in which two or three sentences, or two or three phrases in a sentence are rhythmically balanced. This kind of rhythm may create a style of formality and eloquence and impress the readers a lot. In Mencius, there are numerous sentences that are balanced in rhythm. Besides, there are also many rhymed words which frequently appear in Mencius help create a kind of beauty in sound and impress the readers a lot. At the lexical level, the stylistic features of Mencius are also formal and eloquent, mainly shown by single verbs, metaphors, etc. As for single verbs, Mencius used many to create formal and eloquent style, for they are concise and compact. Besides, Mencius used quite a lot of metaphors...