A Stylistic Approach To Eileen Chang’ S Translation Of Jin Suo Ji

Stylistics is the interdiscipline between linguistics and literaturestudies, which uses linguistics as a tool to analyze and comment onliterary texts. Linguistic stylistics, the bridge between linguistics andliterary critics, combines the form and content of literary works, andemphasizes the descriptive analysis from linguistic and literary critics’perspective. Linguistic Stylistics provides stylistic studies a useful tool,changes impressiveness and intuitiveness of traditional literary translationcritic method into more systematic and visualized way. Literary criticsmay systematically describe the stylistic features of the literary texts,which may guide the translators’ translation process. At the same time,translation critics may use the method to evaluate different translationversions of a literary work. Nowadays, in China, linguistic stylistics hasintegrated with translation practice and translation criticism.From1980s’ till now, research on Eileen Chang’ s literary works hasbeen emphasized, but her position as a translator has been ignored by literatus. Not until1990s’ can her translator’s position be realized. Fromthen on, the study on Eileen Chang’s translation has become popular inacademic circles. Her well-known work Jin Suo Ji was translated andrewritten for five times in28years from1943, the publication of Jin SuoJi, till1971, the publication of Yuan Nü. It is a unique phenomenon intranslation studies. This paper will list out the similarities and differencesamong the existing four versions together with the reasons why Jin Suo Jiis translated and rewritten. The author also explores whether the socialand historical condition at her time influence her translation andrewriting.The paper is a translation product research targeting on literaryevaluation and translation criticism of a literary translation from Jin SuoJi to The Golden Cangue. In the research process the stylistic features ofthe targeting texts on phonological level, lexical level, grammatical leveland figure of speech are analyzed according to Leech and Short’ slinguistic and stylistic analysis classification. The author pops out a newcheck point: imagery. Linguistics and literary criticism methods are adopted in the analysis of the target texts. There are three steps in author’sresearch process. Firstly the foregrounding stylistic features contributingto the theme and artistic value of Jin Suo Ji will be found out. Secondly,transfer of stylistic features from Jin Suo Ji to The Golden Cangue isdiscussed. A detailed analysis and evaluation of the foregroundingfeatures’ translation in Jin Suo Ji and The Golden Cangue are performed.There are pros and cons in Eileen Chang’s translation of Jin Suo Ji.However, apart from some weak points in the translation, Chang isproved to be a good translator of Jin Suo Ji as a self-translator.