Examining “deceptive equivalence” in “suspension” translation from Hard Times: A case study of Quan Zenggu and Hu Wenshu’s translation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58885/ijssh.v9i1.100.jlKeywords:
“deceptive equivalence”, “suspensions”, Hard Times, literary translation, literary stylistic analysis.Abstract
This study delves into the Chinese translation strategies employed for rendering "suspensions" in Charles Dickens' novel "Hard Times," utilizing a combination of literary stylistic analysis and a corpus-based approach. The analysis reveals that translators Quan Zenggu and Hu Wenshu retained 73.74% of the "suspensions" from the original text, effectively capturing Dickens' distinctive literary style. However, they also employed merging and adjusting strategies, altering 26.24% of the "suspensions" found in the source material. These modifications resulted in weakened tension arising from retrospective pauses, a diminished synchronicity between movements and speech, disruption of the irony effect, challenges in character identification and traits, and a departure from the repetitive patterns of circumstantial information present in the original work. Moreover, these alterations disrupted the effect of dramatic conflict and misled the reader's focus, thereby influencing the thematic meaning, aesthetic value, and overall portrayal of characters' personalities. Consequently, a phenomenon of "deceptive equivalence" in translation emerges from a stylistic perspective.
References
Hu, Kaibao. (2011). An Introduction to Corpus-based Translation Studies [语料库翻译学概论]. Shanghai: Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press. [In Chinese]
Hu, Xianyao. (2004). Corpus-based Translation Studies and Translation Universals [语料库翻译研究与翻译普遍性]. Shanghai Science and Technology Translation, 2004(4), 47–49. [In Chinese]
Mu, Congjun, & Zhang, Wenjie. (2022). The Application of the CLiC Online Corpus in Literary Teaching and Research [CLiC在线语料库资源在文学教学与研究中的应用]. Foreign Languages and Translation, 2022(3), 71–77. [In Chinese]
Quan, Zenggu, & Hu, Wenshu. (2008). Hard Times [艰难时世]. Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House. [In Chinese]
Shen, Dan. (2002). On the Importance of Literary Stylistics in Translation Studies [论文学文体学在翻译学科建设中的重要性]. Chinese Translators Journal, 2002(1), 11–15. [In Chinese]
Shen, Yingli, & Sun, Zhili. (2004). On the Narrative Perspective in the Chinese Translation of Ulysses* [由《尤利西斯》中译本看小说翻译中叙事视角的传译]. Journal of PLA University of Foreign Languages, 2004(5), 51–57. [In Chinese]
Shu, Yuntong. (2011). "Deceptive Equivalence" in Three Translations of "Kong Yiji" [《孔乙己》三个译本的“假象等值”]. Shandong Foreign Language Teaching Journal, 2011(2), 92–96. [In Chinese]
Xu, Xiaomei. (2012). On the "Deceptive Equivalence" in Novel Translation: A Case Study of the Chinese Translations of "A Farewell to Arms" [论小说翻译中的“假象等值”——《永别了,武器》中译本个案研究]. Journal of Lanzhou Jiaotong University, 2012(2), 121–123. [In Chinese]
Zhang, Tongtong. (2017). Insights from Foregrounding Theory on Novel Translation Studies: A Case Study of the Translation of "Animal Farm" [前景化理论对小说翻译研究的启示——以《动物农场》的翻译为例]. East Journal of Translation, 2017(1), 18–22. [In Chinese]
Brook, G. L. The Language of Dickens [M]. London: Andre Deutsch, 1970.
Caserio, R. L. Review: Excess and Restraint in the Novels of Charles Dickens. , by John Kucich; A Reformer’s Art: Dickens’ Picturesque and Grotesque Imagery. , by Nancy K. Hill; Dickens and the Suspended Quotation. , by Mark Lambert; and Charles Dickens’ Book of Memoranda: A Photographic and Typographic Facsimile of the Notebook Begun in January 1855. , by Charles Dickens [J]. Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 1983(3): 337–347.
Korte, B. Body Language in Literature [M]. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997.
Lambert, M. Dickens and the Suspended Quotation [M]. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981.
Lambrou, M. Michaela Mahlberg, Corpus stylistics and Dickens's fiction. London: Routledge, 2013. Pp. vii 221. ISBN 780-0-415-80014-3 [J]. English Language & Linguistics, 2014(1): 202-207.
Leech, G. N., & Short, M. Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose (2nd ed) [M]. London: Pearson Longman, 2007.
Mahlberg, M. The corpus stylistic analysis of fiction – or the fiction of corpus stylistics? [A] In J. Mukherjee, & M. Huber (Eds.), Corpus Linguistics and Variation in English [C]. London: Brill, 2012: 77-95.
Mahlberg, M., Smith, C., & Preston, S. Phrases in literary contexts: Patterns and distributions of suspensions in Dickens’s novels [J]. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 2013 (2): 35–56.
Newsom R. Style of Dickens [A]. In Schlicke P. (ed.) The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Charles Dickens [C]. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000: 553–557.
Ruano San Segundo, P. CLiC and corpus literary translation studies: An analysis of suspensions in one Spanish translation of Charles Dickens’s Hard Times [J]. Onomázein, 2017 (38): 88–106.
Stockwell, P., & Mahlberg, M. Mind-modeling with corpus stylistics in David Copperfield [J]. Language and Literature (Harlow, England), 2015(2): 129–147.
Downloads
Published
Versions
- 2025-03-18 (2)
- 2024-12-31 (1)
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Author
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
