Through presentation and discussion of major Translation Studies research trends — namely, an unrealistic, disproportionately mono‐lingual/mono‐variant treatment of dialect — relating to (un‐) translatability of linguistic variation, the present paper has tried to set a context within which alternative perspectives of variation — namely, diglossia and heteroglossia — may be afforded some attention.
In particular, analysis of four English‐language translations — Wang Chi‐chen’s Ah Q and others: Selected stories of Lusin (1941); Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang’s The true story of Ah Q (1956); William A. Lyell’s Diary of a madman and other stories (1990);
and Julia Lovell’s The real story of AhQ and other tales of China (2009) — has provided an example of translation from a diglossic language — Chinese — into a non‐diglossic one — English. Moreover, the diglossic scenario presented in the original has been shown to be an important feature of the parody of traditional Chinese historiography functioning within the source text, in particular, and the historicized Chinese referential frame, in general.
Discussion of the four translations also has helped to highlight differences between a variety‐for‐variety, equivalence‐fidelity‐based view of dialect quite common within the (un‐) translatability of linguistic variation literature and an ‘alteration of relative distance’ view that the present paper claims is unique to the work of J C Catfords (1965) and Anthony Pym (2000). It is my hope that the present paper may be one of many research projects to come that will extend the scope of the (un‐) translatability of linguistic variation discussion to include investigation of translation into, out of, and within diglossic, heteroglossic, and multilingual language communities and language contact situations.
This paper has tried to paint a clear picture of the condition of the narrator of Lu Xun’s novella The True Story of Ah Q as he is recreated in the English‐speaking world.
This has been carried out through a detailed analysis of four separate English‐
language translations of Lu Xun’s novella, namely Wang Chi‐chen’s Ah Q and others;
Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang’s The True Story Ah Q; William A. Lyell’s Diary of a Madman and Other Stories; and Julia Lovell’s The Real Story of Ah Q and Other Tales of China. Although analysis was carried out on only one passage, the clear
representation of register variation and heteroglossia in this particular passage make it an important point of comparison between original and translation.
Moreover, throughout the novella, the characteristics of the voice of the narrator, the villagers and of Ah Q as demonstrated by the passage analyzed do not change in regard to register variation or heteroglossia. Also, the reproducibility of the analysis presented here makes it quite simple to investigate further passages of the text if necessary.
With respect to the analysis presented in the present paper, the focus has been places upon (non‐) representation within the four translations of diglossia,
heteroglossia, and linguistic variation as presented in Lu Xun’s Ah Q Zhengzhuan. In particular, discussion has been focused upon representation of linguistic variation within the story’s narrative as it functions to foreground a parodic treatment of Chinese traditional historiography and the diglossic language contact situation in Pre‐modern China.
In summary, analysis has produced the following results:
Firstly, with respect to the representation of heteroglossia in the four English translations, only Lyell’s work succeeds fully. Although Lovell does present a heteroglossic narrative, in the particular case of the sampling of text used for analysis in this paper, her narrative is not clearly differentiated enough to produce the effect present in Lu Xun’s original and, therefore, is only marginally successful.
Secondly, none of the four translations were able to fully re‐create the hybridity within voice that we saw in the voice of the villagers in the sampling of text from the original. Perhaps, this characteristic of Lu Xun’s narrative was difficult to reproduce
because it not only involves the representation of two distinct registers within the single voice of the villagers but, also, needs something to offset both of those registers from that of the narrator. Obviously, the non‐diglossic nature of the modern day English language situation makes it difficult for translators to
effectively deal with the diglossic situation presented in Ah Q Zhengzhuan. It may be possible, however, to make use of archaic English grammar and lexicon in order to represent the non‐vernacular characteristic of wenyan in the Chinese diglossic scenario. In fact, Lyell’s translation demonstrates the use of both archaic grammar and archaic lexicon.
Thirdly, only Lovell’s translation was able to recreate the parodic narrative of the original, since only hers had a clear, and more or less distinct, class‐related variance in register visible between the language of the narrator and that of the subject of the narration, the character of Ah Q. As I mentioned earlier, this difference could have been made more obvious still so that the parodic effect produced might be even greater. In addition, Lovell is the only one of the four translators to provide a preface outlining some of the socio‐historical background necessary for an understanding of the context in which Lu Xun’s parody functions. She also provides the reader with a list of “further readings” related to the historical moment in which Lu Xun lived and produced Ah Q Zhengzhuan. Lyell (1990) does provide extensive footnotes to
accompany his translation. However, socio‐historical details are not discussed as thoroughly as they are in Lovell’s work. As has been mentioned already, within the field of Translation Studies, issues relating to the visible involvement of a translator within a text only began to come under scrutiny in the 1990s (Bassnett 2002:9). As a result, the historical context of the translator must also be considered when
discussing the presence or absence of any overt translator involvement. Both Wang (1941) and the Yangs (1956) published their translations well before any discussion of translator visibility had taken place.
Fourthly, in terms of creating a distinction between the language of Ah Q and that of his narrator, both Lovell and Lyell were successful; however, because Lyell’s
narrator had such a propensity for the use of vernacular, his translation was, at the same time, unsuccessful in recreating any parodic narrative function.
In closing, I would like to suggest some possible areas for investigation. First, with respect to Translation Studies and the concept of diglossia, it may be fruitful to develop further the idea that translation into a diglossic language contact situation may have some effect upon the H‐L relationship present in the domestic language situation. One example, discussed briefly in the present paper, is the proportionately greater amount of L‐variant grammar and lexicon in translated Chinese Buddhist texts in comparison to that found in indigenously composed Chinese Buddhist texts (Mair 1994:712).
Second, with respect to Lu Xun and his works in translation, it may be interesting to compare his rhetoric of parody with that used in classic English literature. It has been documented, for example, that Lu Xun was greatly influenced by the works of great parody writers such as Nikolai Gogol and Jonathan Swift.19 A comparison of the parodic styles of authors who worked and lived in linguistic and socio‐historical contexts quite different to Lu Xun may produce some insight into possible options for the representation of Lu Xun’s parody in translation. Finally, further exploration of Pym’s (2000) notion of “syntagmatic alteration of distance” as basis for discussion and translation of linguistic variation is needed. In particular, it would be useful to investigate viability of the notion in terms of translation of texts that employ
extensive linguistic variation such as George Bernard Shaw’s (1912) Pygmalion and Mark Twain’s (1884) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
19There is a discussion in Patrick Hanan’s “The Technique of Lu Hsün's Fiction,” regarding the influence of Western authors on the literary consciousness of Lu Xun.
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