A Corpus-based Comparative Study Of Styles In Three Chinese Translations Of Oscar Wilde’s Fairy Tales

Oscar Wilde,a renowned Irish writer,wrote nine fairy tales in his lifetime.In his fairy tales,the omniscient perspective of traditional fairy tales is absent,and the internal focalization and external focalization are alternatively adopted,which not only makes the narrative feature particular but also enables readers to participate in the construction of the meaning of the works.Present research on the Chinese translations of Wilde’s fairy tales are mainly from the perspective such as translational history,skopos theory,aesthetic theory,rewriting theory,translation strategies,and so on.However,the study on the style of the Chinese versions of Wilde’s fairy tales is paid scant attention.The present paper explores the features of translation styles presented in the three Chinese versions by Mu Mutian,Ba Jin and Zhu Chunshen respectively.The paper firstly probes into the differences of the three versions in macro-linguistic levels with the aim of comparing and analyzing the translation styles of the three versions.At the same time,the methods for translating point of view in the translations are examined on the basis of the peculiar narratological feature of the source text.In the investigation of macro-linguistic levels,there are slight differences in the three versions: Zhu’s translation has the highest standardized type/token ratio and lexical density,while its mean sentence length is slightly lower than that of Ba’s.And the lexical density and mean sentence length of Mu’s version are slightly lower than those of the other two versions.The chi-square test proves that the data has no significant difference,which indicates these differences are not able to effectively distinguish various translations.Through the further examination of the methods used in rendering transitivity,modality,spatial deixis,and free indirect speech,the distinct differences between the three texts are uncovered:(a)There are differences in the methods for translating the indicators of the mental processes “felt” and “heard”: Zhu’s version is inclined to adopt the modification,while Mu and Ba use the omission to a greater extent in the other two versions.(b)Three translations differ in the methods for translating the deontic and epistemic modality respectively signified by “should” and “might”: in Zhu’s and Mu’s translations,there are more instances of omission and modification,which indicates the epistemic is weakened while the modality of requirement is strengthened.But only omission occurs in Ba’s version.(c)The methods used in the translating spatial deictic term “here” are also different in the three translated texts.Zhu tends to omit this deictic,weakening the spatial point of view.Mu’s translation includes more instances of modification which also make the spatial point of view less distinct.But Ba frequently retains this spatial deictic in his translation.(d)In terms of translation of free indirect speech in three translations,both Zhu and Mu reproduce the free indirect speech of the original by omitting the subject of the sentence and maintaining the characters’ idiomatic expression.In addition,the hybridity of free indirect speech occurs in Zhu’s and Mu’s translations due to lack of verbal tense.By contrast,Ba is inclined to transfer the free indirect speech into the narrative report by duplicating the pattern and tense of the original sentence.In short,different translation methods lead to reproductions of the narrative point of view of the original work,which achieve different translation styles in the three translated versions.