Translators' and Target Readers' Reconstruction of Regionalism In
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Translators’ and Target Readers’ Reconstruction of Regionalism in Taiwan’s Regional Prose Literature For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Modern Languages Yun-Fang Lo March 2012 Declaration i Acknowledgements First and foremost I offer my sincerest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Francis Jones, whose encouragement, supervision and support enabled me to develop an understanding of the subject. His detailed and constructive comments have provided a good basis for the present thesis. I am deeply grateful to my supervisor, Dr. Valerie Pellatt, for her important support and comments throughout this work. Her wide knowledge of Chinese/Taiwanese literature in translation has been of great value for me. It would have been next to impossible to write this thesis without their help and guidance. I am also heartily thankful to my previous supervisor, Dr. Alison Hardie, who supported me throughout the years with her patience and knowledge even after she left Newcastle for Leeds University. In addition, I would like to thank, Dr. Dongning Feng, for his supervision and guidance in the initial stage of my PhD. I am also obliged to my research participants whose responses provided me with many useful data and made this thesis possible. I would like to make a special reference to Prof. Howard Goldblatt, Dr. Rosemary Haddon and Mr. Jon Jackson who shared insightful information about their experience in translating Taiwan’s regional prose literature. I am very grateful to Dr. Joseph Bosco, Dr. Red Chan, Prof. Jens R Hentschke and Mr. Kenneth Liu for providing me with useful information for this study. I am indebted to Chantel Dan Chan, Dr. Mei-hui Chen, Dr. Ya-yun Chen, Li-ting Cheng, Maria Christofi, Dr. Penelope Johnson, Dr. Wen-chun Liang, Dr. Yazhu Ling, Chian-li Lin, Dr. Mahera Musallam, Dr. Pei Meng, Dr. Ted Wang, Dr. Carrie Wang (who passed away in 2007) and Zhu Zhu for their friendship and invaluable advice on my study. I would like to show my gratitude to Mr. Eric Liu and Dr. Joanne Smith Finley for their support and guidance since my MA year in Newcastle. I am also grateful to my dear friends, Avon, Bohua, Fiona, Grace, Jeh, Lee, Lisa, Mitun, Shu-ling and Tom for their support and encouragement. My special thanks must go to Anne and John Lawley who offered their love and support during my stay in Newcastle. My parents, Prof. Chuan-Hsien Lo and Kuei-Hsiang Hsu, have been a constant source of support – emotional, moral and, of course, financial – during all these years of studies, and this thesis would certainly not have existed without them. Finally, I would like to thank my husband, Dr. Shang-min Tu, for being patient with me and my relatives (especially my grandmother who passed away in 2005) for their great support. Last but not least, thanks be to God for helping me through all the difficulties in life. ii Abstract The object of this research is to investigate the dynamic nature of identity construction of a regional place in English translations. The study focuses on the analysis of Wang Zhenhe’s works in translation. The Regional Prose Literature of Taiwan was developed when writers began to examine their identity and sense of belonging under Japanese colonization (1895-1945) and later the rule of the Nationalist government under Martial Law (1949-1987) by using narrative and descriptive prose as a vehicle for presenting the distinctiveness of the island. The dialects, the colonial language, local customs and scenes which regional writers created in their stories brought out what they saw as the uniqueness of Taiwan identity. However, Taiwan, like Hong Kong, has been categorized by many scholars as part of the Han-Chinese-influenced region, which shares the same cultural identity. Translating Taiwan, therefore, depends on how a translator understands and (re)constructs its cultural and political discourse in translation. This thesis uses a cognitive-pragmatic model (CPM) to describe how a translation of regional prose literature communicates to readers of the target culture. The CPM in translation studies looks at translation from the aspects of literary communication and the comprehension process. It enables the researcher (1) to study the textual signals of a place which readers used to construct the text of the source cultural world; (2) to examine how these signals were conveyed in the target text; (3) to study the likely effects on specific readers who have little or no knowledge of the source text culture. The major finding of this study is that communication through translated literature depends not only on the translator’s roles as a reader and a rewriter, but also on target readers’ processing effort and literary competence. Textual analysis shows that the translators’ decisions on conveying regional signals in translations often affect readers’ comprehension of the target text (TT). When the translation is too literal and the cultural signal is unfamiliar to the target readers, those who have little or no knowledge of Taiwan have more difficulties understanding the text. Reader response studies also show that the use of footnotes in the literary translation is not always unacceptable by the readers when specific regional elements are preserved in the TT. Target readers’ reception of cultural signals relies firstly on their existing knowledge and secondly on the information they receive from the translation. Effective communication therefore results from a translator’s assumption of target readers’ schemas and efforts in making the translation comprehensible and coherent, especially when there are regional elements in the translation. iii Table of Content DECLARATION ............................................................................................................................... I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................. II ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... III TABLE OF CONTENT.................................................................................................................. IV CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................1 1.1 General Introduction to this Thesis ............................................................................................................ 1 1.2 The Aims of this Thesis ............................................................................................................................... 3 1.3 The Translation of Taiwan’s Regional Literature.......................................................................................... 5 1.4 Structure of the Thesis ............................................................................................................................... 6 CHAPTER TWO BACKGROUND.................................................................................................9 2.1 Introduction to Taiwan’s History ................................................................................................................ 9 2.1.1 Seventeenth Century Taiwan ............................................................................................................... 9 2.1.2 Conquest of the Manchus .................................................................................................................. 10 2.1.3 Japanese Colonisation ....................................................................................................................... 12 2.1.4 The Early KMT Rule and Martial Law .................................................................................................. 13 2.2 Ethnicity and Language Development in Taiwan ...................................................................................... 18 2.3 Language Attitudes and Identity in Taiwan ............................................................................................... 21 2.3.1 Identity and Nation ........................................................................................................................... 21 2.3.2 Linguistic Markers in Taiwan .............................................................................................................. 24 2.3.3 The Formation of the Taiwanese Identity ........................................................................................... 25 2.3.4 Regionalism in Taiwan ....................................................................................................................... 27 2.4 Regional Literature in Taiwan ................................................................................................................... 28 2.4.1 First Phase: Literary Reforms in the Early 1920s and Early 1930s ........................................................ 30 2.4.2 Second Phase: Early KMT Rule during the 1940s and 1960s ................................................................ 30 2.4.3 Third Phase: Xiang Tu Literature in the 1970s ..................................................................................... 31 2.5 Regional writers: The Case Studies ........................................................................................................... 33 2.5.1 Wang Chen-ho (1940-1990) ............................................................................................................... 33 2.5.1.1 The Novel Rose, Rose, I Love You ...............................................................................................