On The Application Of Focalization In Translation Of English Fictions

"Deceptive equivalence"is a headaching problem in translating fictions. In order to solve it, translators apply narratology to translating fictions. They pay attention to the equal shift of narrative term in translating fictions and believe that when the narrative term is translated successfully in target language, the"deceptive equivalence"can be avoided in the translation text. In their theories, focalization is a useful device in testing whether the narrative term shifts successfully from source language to target language. However, they don't reveal the importance of focalization on translating fictions. Compared to any other narrative terms, focalization not only can conclude the general meaning of a certain text, but also reveals the hidden meaning of this text. Thus, the application of focalization in translating fictions can make translators comprehend the source language precisely. And translators can express the hidden meaning of the source language successfully in target language.The thesis discusses the application of focalization in translating fictions in three directions:Firstly, this thesis identifies the feasibility of focalization in translating fictions from translator and translation text. It proposes that narrative focalization can cripple the subjectivity of translator and reduce the variance in translation text through accurate analysis of focalization in source language.Secondly, this thesis applies focalization to translating fictions from narrative perspective. Based on scale of increasing degree of restriction, focalization can interpret the narrative perspective from omniscient perspective, limited perspective and objective perspective. Thus, the translated version of narrative perspective can be far away from"deceptive equivalence".Thirdly, this thesis applies focalization to translating fictions from speech presentation. Based on the decreasing tendency of viewpoint, focalization interprets these five models of speech in detail. Therefore, the speech presentation of source language could be expressed successive in target language.Therefore the introduction of focalization to translating fiction can help analyze the source language objective from form and content, avoiding the deceptive equivalence in translation text as much as possible.The thesis takes two famous Chinese translations of Ulysses for example: one is translated by Xiao Qian and the other is made by Jin Di. It applies focalization to compare these two translations, points out the variance in these translations and produces the successful translation. These prove further that the application of focalization in translation fictions is feasible:Firstly, it cripples the subjectivity of translator, and expresses the source language in target language faithfully.Secondly, focalization paraphrases source language precisely from the form and the meaning, avoiding the disappearance of hidden meaning in translation text and keeping translation text far from"deceptive equivalence".