A C-E Translation Report On Speaking For The Nakhi In The Distance (Excerpt) From The Perspective Of Defamiliarization Theory

Literariness in literary works distinguishes themselves from non-literary works,thus as for the translation of literary works,their literariness should be paid much attention to.Victor Shklovsky,the representative of Russian Formalism,puts forward the concept of defamiliarization.He believes it is the novel and unique way of expression in literary works that produces literariness.When this theory is applied to the translation,it means the translator should retain the defamiliarized techniques and exotic features in the target text,bringing the target readers a sense of freshness.In addition,the translator’s recreation in translation is another way to defamiliarize the target text apart from keeping the original defamiliarized effect.For better of conveying literariness,the translator could turn the plain expressions into novel ones creatively.Therefore,the essence of the defamiliarizing translation strategy lies that: in literary translation,the translator should deliberately retain the defamiliarized techniques used in the source text on the one hand,on the other hand,it should be committed to discovering the heterogeneous components in the source text and expressing them in the target text.By creating unfamiliar effects to arouse the target readers’ perception of exotic languages and to increase their aesthetic difficulty,the exotic beauty in the original literature will be showed to the target readers.Speaking for the Nakhi in the Distance is a novella collection.With unique style,it describes the colorful local conditions,folk customs,folklore and people of the Nakhi.There are seven novellas totally,of which,A Broken Street tells the loss of the Nakhi ethnic group in the development of history;The Commander’s Ear describes the Nakhi people’s tenacity and the transnational beauty of humanity;Playing the Wrong Cards describes the Nakhi women’s qualities of optimism,accountability and daring to love and hate;My Patient and Me reveals the mental illness of the our society;Going for the Third Country of Yulong depicts the pure love of the Nakhi couple;Snowing in Kunming in Spring describes the urban women’s confusion in the materialistic society;The Unfinished Initiation Rite selected by this paper takes the protagonist’s initiation rite as the narrative clue,narrating the conflict between the protagonist’s outlook and the tradition of Mosuo society,which indicates the change of his fate.No matter the rich rhetorical devices,words with local characteristics,or the compact narrative structure,are all the“defamiliarized ingredients” scattered in this work.Therefore,how to transfer these“characteristics” to the target text and to be accepted by target readers will largely determine the vitality of the translation.