A Study On The Reproduction Of Defamiliarization Devices In Eileen Chang’s Literary Self-translation

Russian Formalism holds that the object of literary science is "literariness", which is embodied in "defamiliarization". The nature of literary translation lies in the "literary expression" of the translated works. Since "defamiliarization" is the main source of literariness, the reproduction of defamiliarization devices becomes translators’ compulsory consideration in literary translation, for which will exert a direct impact on whether the translator is able to reproduce the original aesthetics.This study, a case study on Eileen Chang’s three self-translated literary works Golden Cangue, Shame, Amah! and Little Finger Up published in the name of self-translation and their English versions, conducts an exhaustive investigation on the defamiliarization devices in the original and their English versions. In combination with the defamiliarization theory in Russian Formalism and literary translation theory, it explores Eileen Chang’s translation strategies of reproducing the linguistic defamiliarization devices on lexical, syntactic and rhetoric levels. Through a comparison of the proportion accounted by each translation strategy, this research aims to explore how and to what extent the defamiliarization devices which show the literariness of the original are reproduced in the process of self-translation; whether the information and poetic conflict which usually impedes the reproduction of literariness still exists in self-translation; whether the defamiliarization devices could be better transferred in self-translation. The validity and hindrance of the reproduction of defamiliarization in literary translation are further explored.It is shown that among the 66 defamiliarization devices in the original with 10 at lexical level,4 at syntactic level and 52 at rhetoric level,49 defamiliarization devices are translated with alienizing translation strategy which account for 74.24%,8 with normalizing strategy which account for 12.12% and 9 with omitting strategy which account for 13.64% in her self-translation. The result suggests that in the process of self-translation, Eileen Chang endeavors to preserve the original linguistic characteristics to the largest extent through alienizing translation strategy, having the original literariness transferred; with the translator and author as the same person, the translator’s poetic orientation and aesthetic appeals according with that of the author, conflict between the literary translator and the author tends to disappear, so the reproduction of defamiliarization devices is maximized; however, due to the manipulative factor of ideology and the cultural and linguistic differences between China and the West, normalizing and omitting translation strategies are also employed with a rather limited number, which proves the translatability of literariness in literary works. The study on the self-translation of literary works provides reference for the whole literary translation as well as for the translation which is not performed by the author.