A Study Of Zhu Shida's Chinese Version Of A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man From The Perspective Of Paratext Theory

Over the second half of the 20 th century,as translation researchers and scholars realized the complexity of translation,translation studies had embraced more cross-disciplinary inquiry.Nowadays translation has gone beyond the purely linguistic and literary study,while culture,ideology,psychology,sociology and so on are increasingly drew on in translation studies.Over the last decades,inspired by the work of Genette,Paratext: Thresholds of Interpretation,researchers have begun to attach importance to the text surrounding the translations,namely paratext,which includes preface,notes,dusk jacket,illustrations,titles,index and so on.Paratext supports the core text and helps to illustrate the translational phenomenon both implicit and explicit in translated text.It has functions of defining,explaining,instructing,adding background information,or the relevant opinions and attitudes of scholars and reviewers.Paratext can be either verbal or non-verbal materials.A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is an autobiographical novel of the well-known Irish writer James Joyce,whose works are famous for the writing technique—stream of consciousness.This novel is usually regarded as the prelude for readers who want to read Joyce's other masterpieces like Ulysses.Currently there are four Chinese versions of this novel,among which Zhu Shida's version is characterized by elaborate paratexts.Based on the above discussion,this paper describes the specific forms of paratext,analyzes the use and meaning of various paratexts in Zhu Shida's Chinese version of A Portrait,and discusses the reasons why more paratexts appear in this version of A Portrait under the guidance of Manipulation Theory,so as to emphasize the importance of paratext in translation studies and attract more attention of Chinese scholars to research paratext in the field of translation studies.The paper analyzes preface,notes,publisher's peritext and epitext respectively.The paper is divided into five chapters.Chapter one is about the research background and significance,as well as a brief introduction to the novel and author.Chapter two is literature review,in which studies both at home and abroad on the translation of A Portrait are summarized.After collecting and reviewing,several characteristics on the researches of the translation of the novel are concluded.All of these serve as an enlightenment to the further study.Chapter three is the theoretical framework,in which the content and meaning of paratext are discussed in details.The classification of paratext and chief elements in paratext are all concerned.Besides,the manipulation theory will be illustrated as it will be used to discuss why thereare more paratexts in Zhu Shida's Chinese version of A Portrait.Chapter four is research design,in which three questions of the present research are raised and research methodology is introduced.In chapter five,the essence of the paper,research procedures are displayed carefully.Each paratext is analyzed based on the research questions.The last chapter is conclusion.Major findings and implications,as well as limitations of the research are made clear.Research findings show that paratext serves as an indispensable supplement of the text.They function by identifying the value of the text,illustrating the text,giving background information as well as advertising the text.Meanwhile,the author finds that it is the open ideological environment and cultural diversity that make the translation and research on Joyce's works prosperous,which ultimately leads to rich paratexts in A Portrait,and also explains the reason why the translator tries to be faithful to the original text.