A Study On The Reproduction Of Xinshi Zhi Han’s Stylistic Features In The Messenger’s Letter

The upsurge of avant-garde writings started from the 1980 s, when the reform and opening up policy was introduced to China. At that time, Chinese writers began to have easy access to many literature works, writing techniques and literary theories from the West, which were reflected in their writings. Therefore, the exploration of Xinshi Zhihan, one of the most representative Chinese avant-garde fictions, and of its English translation, plays an important role in how to better understand and translate contemporary Chinese literature. By structuring the story in a fragmented and incoherent manner, the author of Xinshi Zhihan tries to rebel against traditional ways of literary writing. And with such a bold and unconventional writing style, he seems to imply the fabricated nature of the story. Since the style of this fiction distinguishes it from other contemporary Chinese fictions, its stylistic features and the reproduction of these features in its English translation, The Messenger’s Letter, are worth our efforts to work on.The understanding of a translated work is supposed to be based on the detailed exploration of the original text. Therefore, Xinshi Zhi Han’s stylistic features are analyzed, before it comes to the analysis of the translation. They are explored at lexical, syntactical and textual levels respectively after a relatively thorough literature review, where some previous studies on Xinshi Zhi Han are introduced, together with Peter Newmark’s translation theory, namely semantic translation and communicative translation. The review sheds light on the analysis of this unique novella as well as its English translation. Thereafter comes the careful analysis of how well Xinshi Zhi Han’s stylistic features are reproduced in The Messenger’s Letter. In this part, several purposefully chosen examples are studied. Although Xinshi Zhi Han is categorized as an expressive text, semantic translation should not be the only method to be used. Instead, a combined use of semantic translation and communicative translation is a wiser choice since they both have their own advantages and disadvantages.