Representation Of Defamiliarization In Romance Of Western Bower Translated By Xu Yuanchong

Literature as an art of language,ultimately aims to refresh senses we often unconsciously ignore in life,and writers demonstrate them in front of readers with novel wordings and unfamiliar expressions which extend readers’ perception so as to deliver artistic enjoyment.This technique called “defamiliarization” serves as an significant means to preserve literariness of the work.Literary translation as a specific type of translation requires more literary awareness from the translator to better represent the defamiliarized language effects of the original work,to exert translators’ subjectivity and to treat the translation with more defamiliarized flavor.Romance of Western Bower is one of the most influential traditional Chinese drama scripts,widely known as “the most wonderful work between heaven and earth”,ranking the first among the top four Yuan Dramas.Since its publication,Romance of Western Bower has received praises from readers and translators at home and abroad.In this version,the translator,first of all,uses lyrical verses instead of proses in rendering the rhyming lyrics in the play;second,Xu preserves and also represents the defamiliarized effects of the original script in three aspects namely sense,sound and form,with equivalent or similarly effective rhetorical devices,making the translation an equally literary work in English literature.This thesis analyzes and reflects upon different strategies Xu adopts in representing the defamiliarized language effects in the above three aspects,and concludes that defamiliarized effects are usually realized by rhetorical devices and that their representation which contributes to preserving literariness requires from the translator a better awareness of literariness,exertion of translator’s subjectivity and maximization of the advantages of both languages.