“也”谈杨宪益和莱尔译《阿Q正传》

On Yang's and Lyell's Translations of in‘The True Story of Ah Q'

"也"字是我国文学作品中的高频虚词,不具备命题意义,但具有重要的衔接与传情功能,语言学家将此类虚词称作元话语。"也"字英译的质量关乎原作情感的准确表达,关乎西方读者对作品的理解,关乎中华文学走出去战略的实施效果。笔者以《阿Q正传》为语料,发现其中的193个"也"均为元话语,不具备命题意义,即便删除,不会影响原文语义。以严谨著称的鲁迅写作时将其保留,必有其背后的动因。本研究依据Hyland对元话语的分类,将其分为引导式元话语和互动式元话语,分析杨译和莱译是否完整地保留了原文"也"的功能和效果,旨在为我国文学作品中元话语的英译提供些许策略上的参考。

The character“也”is a function word with high frequency in Chinese literary works.Although without propositional meaning,it plays an important role in cohesion and expressing emotions and attitudes.Words of this type are termed metadiscourse by linguists.The translation quality of“也”determines whether the target text is equivalent to the source text in emotions and attitudes,Western readers’ understanding of the work,and even the success of Chinese literature going global.This thesis studies all the 193“也”in ‘The True Story of Ah Q'and has found that they are all metadiscourse without propositional meaning.Deletion of which will not affect the meaning of the source text.Lu Xun,famous for his precision in languages,must have reasons for keeping them.In line with Hyland's model,the thesis classifies them into interactive and interactional metadiscourse,examines whether their English translations by Yang Xianyi and Lyell have the same functions and effects as“也”in the source text,with the hope of offering some reference for translations of metadiscourse in Chinese literary works.