A Corpus-based Investigation Into Translator’s Style

Ren Rongrong is both a renowned writer and translator of children’s literature in China.At present,the studies on Ren focus on qualitative description of his translation thoughts,with analysis under the guidance of functional translation theory or from the perspective of reception aesthetics and children-orientation standard,to summarize the characteristics of his translations and his translation strategies,or to further analyze the motivation or factors behind the formation of those strategies.However,there is a lack of systematic studies on the translator’s style by using corpus-based quantitative analysis combined with qualitative description method,and the studies are even less on the influence of the style of the original texts and his own writings on his translation style.In this thesis,four small corpora are built,covering Ren Rongrong’s main children’s literature works,translated children’s literature works and corresponding English original texts,as well as several versions of some original texts translated by the other three translators(Kang Xin,Xiao Mao and Yang Jingyuan).The thesis intends to make a macro comparison between the style of original English texts and Ren’s own writing style with his translation style from the four levels of vocabulary,syntax,rhetoric and deixis,to explore the more significant factor influencing Ren’s translation style.Meanwhile,it also aims to make a micro comparative analysis of the common features and individual differences between the translations of Ren and the other three translators,so as to explore Ren’s unique translation style.It is found that Ren Rongrong’s original works are fluent,cordial,natural and lively,which are easy for children to read and absorb.In contrast,his translated works have obvious "traces of translation".His translation style is quite different from his own writing style,but more influenced by the style of the original texts,which is mainly reflected in the following aspects:(1)At lexical level,Ren’s vocabulary changes little with a rather high repetition rate,which takes children’s cognitive level into consideration but leads to the lack of richness in language.(2)At syntactic level,he prefers to use long sentences and complex grammatical structures with the grammatical markers such as conjunctions and complex attributives clearly manifested.However,the large amount of information load may increase the burden of children’s reading process,and the excessive Westernization of the language is not conducive to children’s comprehension and cognition of idiomatic Chinese.(3)At rhetorical level,the frequent use of onomatopoeia,reduplication,modal particles and r-pronounced words enhances the vividness and charm of the translated works,but his translations are limited to the reproduction of the original scene with less expression of his personal emotions.(4)And in the aspect of deixis,personal pronouns and demonstrative pronouns are frequently used with strict consistency with the source texts,but the single translation method sometimes leads to redundancy or even ambiguity,which may get in the way of children’s better understanding of the language.Compared with Ren’s translation style,Kang Xin and Yang Jingyuan tend to use rich expressions and fluent language under the strategic guidance of domestication.Their overall translation style is elegant and concise,but their expressions target more at adult readers,making it a little difficult for children readers to understand.While Xiao Mao prefers to append a lot of notes and pour out his strong personal feelings between the lines,and he mainly adopts the strategy of foreignization as Ren does,making the translated language highly westernized which is not conducive to children readers’appreciation of the charm of authentic language.