The Study Of Li Wenjun’s Translation Of The Sound And The Fury From The Perspective Of Polysystem Theory

The present thesis studies Mr. Li Wenjun’s translation of The Sound and the Furyfrom the perspective of Polysystem Theory. By analyzing the translation background,the author explains the adoption of the translation strategy of the translated version anddescribes its reflection in the translated version.Faulkner’s reputation as one of the greatest novelists of the20thcentury is largelydue to his highly experiential style. Firstly published in1929, The Sound and the Fury isrecognized as Faulkner’s masterpiece, which is above other literature works because ofits innovative writing skills. These innovations make the novel a great challenge to thereaders.The Sound and the Fury is translated by Li Wenjun, who is a leading domesticscholar in studying Faulkner. The Chinese version of The Sound and the Fury wastranslated in1980and published in1984. The translated version made a great success,with its first edition of about85,000sold quickly after its appearance. Li’s translation ofthe novel contributes a lot to the domestic study and appreciation of Faulkner. TheChinese version of the novel has become an important reference for researchers inChina to study the novel even Faulkner.The Israel scholar Itamar Even-Zohar proposed Polysystem theory in the1970s.According to Polysystem Theory, the position owned by translated literature within theliterary polysystem decides the choice, action mode and adoption of translationstrategies. If the translated literature dominates the central position within the targetliterature system, the translation activity will creative and the translated literaturecreates the primary mode. Accordingly, the translator will try to break the literaturetradition and fully express the original works, getting closer to the original culture, andvice versa.Based on the survey of some related materials and comparative reading, the authorfinds that the translator mainly adopts foreignization translation strategy to translate thetext. It is characterized by the imitation of three aspects, the phonetic features, lexicalfeatures, syntactic features. The adoption of the translation strategy is not casual. Basedon the translation background of the novel in China, the present thesis tries to explainthe emergence of the translation strategy with the Polysystem Theory from the angle ofcultural level. The paper places Li’s translation in its emergence background, including the position of the translated literature in the target culture context and social conditionsto discuss the generation of its translation strategy and to describe the strategy by textanalysis. Compared with the former translated text study, this comprehensive study onThe Sound and the Fury can overcome the subjectivity, one-sidedness and superficialityto some degree. What’ more, the study can also help people know the factors behind thetranslated text.