A Study On The Vairations In Wei Yi’s Translation Of A Tale Of Two Cities By Charles Dickens

A Tale of Two Cities, the later works by Charles Dickens, has long beenregarded as one of the most important foreign literature classics in China. It was firstrendered into Chinese by Wei Yi, Linshu’ s coauthor in translating, who translatedthe title as “二城故事”. Unfortunately, this version has failed to gain wide attentionever since it was serially published in1903. In view of the classical status of thisnovel in China as well as the deserving but absent research of its first version, it is ofgreat significance and necessity to elaborate on the manipulation and rewritingrelated with the construction of classics. For that consideration, this thesis, based onthe theory of literature variation and Lefevere’s rewriting theory and supported bythe contemporary western cultural translation theory, is aimed at discussing thevariations in the first Chinese version of A Tale of Two Cities as well as the culturalreasons behind. The body of this thesis is composed by three parts:First, the thesis analyzes the variation of characterization, resulting fromcultural default, dominant poetics and ideology and resulting in the deformation ofcharacters in the target text. Second, the second part of this thesis moves to thevariation of the plot which signifies a lot in the novel and underwent obviousdistortion of abridgement, omission and supplement in order to keep compact form and authenticity in plot required by traditional Chinese novels and to cater forreading expectancy of Chinese readers. At last, this thesis discusses the variation ofnarrative pattern on the basis of narratology from the aspect of narrative speech andthought presentation and of narratorial intrusion. The above discussion draws aconclusion: Wei Yi’s version of A Tale of Two Cities, disclosing the conflict andconversation between the two differential languages and cultures, is a Chinesed text.This thesis is attempted to make the following contributions: first, we hope tofill the vacancy in the study of Wei Yi’s translation through this case study. Second,we hope to observe the law of translation activities from the aspect of variationThird, we hope this thesis could be an enrichment of text-centered research ofliterary transl ation studies.