The Reproduction Of Narrative Effects In Fiction Translation

William Somerset Maugham is a world-renowned British modern novelist and playwright.“The Razor’s Edge”,released in 1944,is the last yet most well-known fiction in his later period writing career.He demonstrated superb narrating techniques in this masterpiece: its varied figural points of view,rich speech presentation modes,witty and sophisticated language,as well as its profound life philosophy—all these features bring great difficulty to reproduction of the narrative effects of this novel.There have been over half a dozen versions of Chinese translation in the domestic book market,yet no reference has been provided for readers to make a wise choice.Moreover,no translation studies of this novel have been carried out by the researchers nationwide,particularly from the perspective of narratology,of which the study focus is fiction.Therefore,this dissertation makes a multiple dimensional comparative analysis of the narrative effects delivered by the three Chinese versions of “The Razor’s Edge”within the realm of “tense” and “mood” of narrative from two overlapping levels of narratology and stylistics—figural points of view(character/figural perspectives)and speech presentation modes,by applying both narratological theories and linguistic tools of stylistics.Through the comparative study,the author finds that all three translators have some inadequacies in reproducing the narrative effects of the novel with regard to narrative point of view and speech presentation modes.However,Zhou Xuliang’s translation gives a better interpretation in respect of transferring the interaction between theme and linguistic form of the original work.Based on this comparative study,to fully deliver the narrative effects of fictions,it is proposed that translators distinguish different speech presentation modes in complicated contexts,mind that the alternation of particular speech presentation modes render narrating tempo different,and consequently dramatic effects,and grasp the language features of figural point of view.