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1、 A STYLISTICS STUDY ON THE CHINESE-ENGLISH TRANSLATIONOF XIEHOUYU IN CHINESEI. Introduction1.1 Definition of Xiehouyu Xiehouyu (Xhy) is defined in H. A. Giles A Chinese English Dictionary (2nd Rev Enlarged.; shanghai, China, and London, 1912; reprinted in Taipei; Cheng-Wen Publishing company 1967) a
2、s “set phrase of which only the protasis is uttered, the apodosis is understood by the speaker, not literally but in a punning sense.” This definition will be more appropriate if it were defined that the apodosis is understood by the listener; and Xiehouyu are not necessarily understood through thei
3、r punning sense. Xiehouyu are sayings heavily loaded with Chinese culture and the Chinese way of life and thinking. Therefore they are difficult to translate and it is probably for this reason that not as many studies as those on other Chinese sayings have been done in this field. However, Xhy are e
4、xtremely popular in Chineses daily, verbal conversation and in literature. It is an intriguing language phenomenon in the Chinese language. They play such an important role that a translator cannot afford to neglect them. 1.2 Historical overview of the studies on Xiehouyu Many a Chinese scholars has
5、 conducted a large variety of researches on various aspects of Xhy and has scored great achievement. In the winter of 1920, a committee was established for the study of Chinese folksy culture in BeiJing University (北大歌谣研究会). Since then Xhy, as a form of folksy culture, came to scholars attention. Es
6、pecially during the 1930s, there was a heated debate over the name for this type of common sayings. Now people generally agreed to name them as Xiehouyu in Chinese, based on their special formation and usage1. Currently there are also splited opinions over the English translation for Xhy. There are
7、suggestions such as “Chinese Quiz-Cracks”, “Chinese folk wisecracks” and “Chinese enigmatic folk similes”, etc. But the most influential one is the one to leave it as the Chinese Pin-yin form. It is recommendable, since Xhys are something unique in Chinese culture, like “Chinese Gongfu”, “Yumcha”, “
8、erhu”, etc. Apart from the controversies over the Chinese and English names for Xhy, other studies before 1949 are mainly focusing on Xhys nature, structure, creation and history. After the establishment of the P. R. China, there is a new round of intense studies on Xhy in late 1950 to early 1960, m
9、arked by Xiehouyu in Chinese (literal)歇后语by Ma Guofan(马国凡)、Gao Gedong(高歌东)、An Overview of Xiehouyu in Chinese (literal)谚语歇后语概论by WangQin (王勤) 、 Xiehouyu in Chinese (literal)歇后语by Wen DuanZheng(温端正) and A New Study on Xiehouyu in Chinese (literal)歇后语新论by Tan YongXiang(谭永祥). 99Overseas there are schol
10、ars from Japan, Pankratov professor from former U.S.S.R and Fancoise Sabban who conducted research on Chinese Xhys. Still these studies are of the similar focuses of those carried out Chinese scholars. At the beginning of the new centuries, scholars started to touch on this area again, and try to ex
11、plain this language phenomenon through an interpretive perspective by applying new language theories. The latest one (I can find) is a thesis written by Zhao XiuQin, “Understanding Chinese Xiehouyu From a Pragma-Cognitive Perspective of Relevance Theory.” The paper interprets the understanding of Xh
12、y by applying relevance theory and psycholinguistic instrumentation. This paper is a good example of intersectional research between psycholinguistics and pragmatics and cognition.1.3 Purpose of the thesis The purpose of this thesis is to study the Chinese-English translation of Xhy through in a sty
13、listic perspective so as to provide more insights of the distinctive features of Xhy and the effects of those stylistic features on the Chinese-English translation. Stylistics, as proposed by H. G. Widdowson (Style and the Teaching of literature), involves both literary criticism and linguistics, as
14、 its morphological making suggests: the “style” component relating it to the former and the “istics” component to the latter”.2 Translating Xhy from Chinese into English is not a mere simple matching of words and forms between these two languages. Because there are many discrepancies between meaning
15、s and structures of different languages, which make some people think translating Xhy is impossible. The main reason of for adopting the stylistic approach is to analyse language habits of using Xhy by Chinese to identify, from the general mass of their conversation, those stylistic features; to exp
16、lain why such features have been used as opposed to others; to classify these features into 4 levels: lexical, phonological, syntactic and semantic based upon a view of their function in the social context and utilise this information to improve the understanding of Xhy, which in turn aim to will help and improve Xhys Chinese-English translation. According to Mr. Wang
