A Narratological Approach To Translation Studies

The Da Vinci Code, a suspense novel written by one of the most popular American writers Dan Brown, has been recognized as a great success. After its first publication in 2003, the thriller has remained a fixture on New York Times best-seller list for 76 weeks; and has been translated into more than 40 languages with 25,000,000 copies sold out all over the world. It is regarded as one of the most popular best-sellers in the history.The Chinese version of The Da Vinci Code is translated by Professor Zhu Zhenwu (School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai University) and his fellow translators Wu Cheng, Zhou Yuanxiao. The Chinese version was first published by Shanghai Renmin Press in 2004, striking a first circulation of 30,000 copies; it had been reprinted 21times by April 2005. Obviously, it has enjoyed huge popularity among Chinese readers.Being a postmodern novel, The Da Vinci Code has been introduced to Chinese readers for only three years. Due to this fact, there are merely 6 articles concerning The Da Vinci Code on the level of text interpretation as well as some random thoughts offered by Professor Zhu on the internet. Evidently, no one in the translation circle, either at home or abroad, has ever done any research on the Chinese translation of The Da Vinci Code.This thesis attempts to take the theory of narratology as a tool, and the version translated by Professor Zhu as the object, analyze and compare the source text and the target text in terms of narrative point of view, narrative presentation, and narrative time (analepsis) to see if the rendition has successfully reproduced the above narration type, and thus illustrate the influence of the transference of narration type exerted on the conveyance of the thematic significance and artistic values of the source text. In this sense, narratology can prove to be instructive for literary translation practice and criticism.Narratology plays an important part in contemporary western literary criticism. It is an intermediate discipline adopted to study literary works based on the linguistic mode. Classical narratology theories mainly focus on the text itself, studying the narrator's ways of expression on the level of "discourse", such as the use of point of view, analepsis and prolepsis, etc. Although at present, translation studies conducted from the narratological perspective is still rarely seen, it is held that narratology could benefit translation criticism with both linguistic analysis and literary criticism, which would help to avoid impressionistic and subjective evaluation of literary translation and achieve comparative objectivity.A literary work, fiction in particular, is characterized by the narrative features manifested through various narration types, the narration elements and the narrative style. Before the translator sets about translating a specific novel, he should first of all have a good knowledge of the author's narrative techniques as well as the narrative features of the source text. Only in this way can he accurately and properly reproduce the narration type and thus transfer the unique style and the essence of the original into the target language.The Da Vinci Code is then a typical example with distinct narrative features in which dynamic suspense, non-linear structure, mingling of synchronicity and diachronicity, well-organized plot, and flashback are all used, and thus add to the readability of this novel.Through the comparative analysis of both the source and the target texts, a conclusion is made that the translation has, generally speaking, succeeded in transferring the narrative features of the original and achieved thematically and aesthetically functional equivalence with the original.This thesis is an attempt to explore the translation of contemporary English literature with the focus on The Da Vinci Code, which is a field scarcely dealt with in China today. It is hoped that as the first attempt to criticize the Chinese version of The Da Vinci Code from the perspective of narratology, the thesis will facilitate Chinese readers to understand the thematic, cultural and artistic values of The Da Vinci Code. In addition, this case study is intended to invite other people's valuable ideas on the criticism of literary translation.