Foreignization In Translating Sons And Lovers: A Case Study In The Dimension Of Modernist Fictional Style

Over the past centuries translation societies both at home and abroad have been debating about the aims, the criteria, the methods, etc. of literary translation. Translators of the earlier days were inclined to translate the content instead of the form of a literary piece. By contrast, those of the present times have stressed that a qualified translator is supposed to translate both the content and the form, because they compose the style of the original work. It is the style that marks a literary piece. The recent decades have witnessed translators consciously translate foreign novels with reproducing style in mind. However, readers and critics have voiced their dissatisfaction with many of the translations.Basically, the style of any great novelist can be outlined and defined but can hardly be detailed to every piece. Each integral part of his style binds and fuses into one another for the overall aesthetic value which we can hopefully sense from repeated thorough readings and discussions. It explains why most of the time readers assume that they know the author but factually barely know, and why a translator often acknowledges that his treatment in the target language of the original is far from impressive no matter how strenuously he has worked.Apart from the natural deplorable gulf between the source language and culture and the target ones, there is another factor preventing the faithful reproduction of the original style, which is the subjectivity of the translator either under-estimated or over-estimated. While encouraging Chinese translators to exercise creative power to give full play to the mother tongue, we shall always alert them against crossing the line to produce fluent but unfaithful translations by abusing the power. Although the overwhelming trend of favoring the method of domestication over the method of foreignization has largely been turned around, the debates over how to weigh between them remain and the risk of imbalance continues to work negatively. It's the time for Chinese translation society to reconsider prioritizing foreignization over domestication in translating foreign novels especially those by modernist author D.H.Lawrence. D.H.Lawrence's artistry excelled in many ways. Besides more than ten novels, he also wrote poems, essays, and short stories. Lately he has been admired for his keen insight into literary criticism on American literature. We begin to realize to the spiritually diseased modern age he's as much important as T.S.Eliot and James Joyce.With little doubt he has been misinterpreted over a long time in China. Ever since he regained due critical respect, Lawrence has been widely read and translated in this land. For example, his autobiographical novel Sons and Lovers has been retranslated more than a dozen times, but few of the Chinese translations turned out to be stylistically striking. Some of them may have failed to express the meaning with good Chinese language, but more may have failed to reproduce the style, which is the last thing a serious translator should do.Despite the deepening understanding of the novel by literary researchers and critics, there have been few comparative studies on various Chinese translations of Sons and Lovers. Little has been known about whether these translations have reproduced the style of the original successfully in terms of using foreignization and domestication skillfully.This thesis is supposed to be an initiative. By comparing and contrasting two Chinese translations of Sons and Lovers produced in different times and both by accomplished translators, I try to prove that the style of this novel, though uniquely complicated, could be translated to some extent by giving constant and consistent priority to foreignization over domestication. In the process, I found a comparatively new translation of Sons and Lovers is typically problematic with abusing Chinese idioms to domesticate the stylistic foreignness of the original, while an earlier translation has largely managed to reflect the style in terms of treating similes and metaphors, punctuations and personal pronouns, and hybrid language.In the first half the thesis, theoretical basis of both literary facts and translation history are laid down. It covers briefly the life and writing career of D.H.Lawrence, the twisting introduction of his works into China, and a handful of debates around translating style of foreign literature. Issues like the aims, the criteria, and the methods of literature translation, the most obvious treatments of original style by Chinese translations, and the necessity of keep retranslating great foreign works by generations of translators are reviewed with my personal arguments added to.In the second half, a case study of translating style is conducted based on the argument that style of Sons and Lovers is translatable to some extent only by prioritizing foreignization over domestication constantly and persistently. With numerous supportive examples on different levels from the two Chinese translations in contrast, the reasoning is hopefully convincing and meaningful. This thesis is written to remind that translating style of Lawrence is essential to any attempt of this sort, and that establishing a systematic field of criticizing Chinese translations of Lawrence's novels is urgent.