A Comparative Study On Explicitation In Three English Versions Of Luotuo Xiangzi From The Perspective Of Acceptability In Text

Recently, many scholars have focused on the corpus-based translation studies, especially the studies of translation "universals". Explicitation, as a translation technique, usually employed by translators, refers to adding or conveying the implied language and cultural elements of source text in the target text, making the target text readable and facilitating target readers’comprehension and acceptability. Hungarian scholar Klaudy distinguishes four types of explicitation:obligatory explicitation, optional explicitation, pragmatic explicitation and translation-inherent explicitation. Inspired by Seguinot’s study of proving the existence of "explicitaion hypothesis", this thesis argues that it is reasonable to conduct a comparative study in different translations of the same source text from the perspective of word, grammar and text. According to the definition and classification of explicitation, the function of explicitation is to satisfy the target readers’expectations and to raise the acceptability of the target text.Translation involves the transformation between two languages and the linguistics theory makes translation studies possible. According to text linguistics, linguistic communication always appears in the form of text. Information can be conveyed by a text which is regarded as the communication occurrence. A translation should first be a text with communicative value. As a cross-cultural communicative activity, translating begins with the intention of the producer and ends in the acceptance and response of the target readers. In other words, the final purpose of translation is to achieve communicative value and make target text acceptable. Thus, a successful translation achieving the acceptability at the textual level to the maximum is of great significance. Based on Beaugrande&Dressler’s seven standards of communicative text, this thesis makes a thorough and detailed study of explicitation. The seven essential standards of text are cohesion, coherence, intentionality, informativity, situationality, intertextuality and acceptability, among which acceptability is reader-oriented and also the final goal of realizing the communicative value of text. If a text fails to satisfy the seven textual principles, so does the text communication. Consequently, acceptability occupies a commanding position in the aspects of the other six standards and the realization of the other six textual principles can affect the acceptability of text.Luotuo Xiangzi is a masterpiece of Lao She who is acclaimed as "People’s Artist". There are many Beijing dialects in the novel which are highly praised both at home and abroad. Apart from unique Beijing dialects, the translation of humorous languages and special cultural images also deserve probing and studying. This thesis makes a comparative study on the three English versions of Luotuo Xiangzi:Jean M. James (1979), Shi Xiaojing (1981) and Howard Goldblatt (2010) from the cohesion, coherence, intentionality, informativity, situationality and intertextuality of textuality. By comparing explicitation strategies in the three English versions of Luotuo Xiangzi from the perspective of acceptability in text, this thesis aims to explore how explicitation strategies achieve the acceptability of the target text in the aspects of the six textual standards and analyze the reasons why different translators use explicitation strategies.The study shows that the realization of cohesion, coherence, intentionality, informativity, situationality and intertextuality are related to each other to affect the acceptability of text. The study also shows that the final goal of different translators is to convey the intention of the original writer to target readers and to make the target text acceptable, though they may use different explicitation strategies. Translators add or adjust cohesive connections and make sentences logic to realize the cohesion and coherence. Translators should understand the intention of the text to reproduce and keep the original style which conforms to the target language norms and they reconstruct the sentences of source text in the target text to realize the intentionality. They also choose specific words and adjust the degree of information from context to realize the informativity and situationality. By cultural presupposition, translators keep cultural images of source text through free translation, literal translation combined with some explanations, making target readers receive the same effects as the original readers perceive in order to realize the intertextuality. Meanwhile, the popularity of Howard Goldblatt’s version can be justified by his appropriate employment of explicitation.