Translating Free Indirect Speech into Chinese: The Case of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

• Main Authors: Wang, Yu-Wen, 王昱文
• Other Authors: Lai, Ping-Yen
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/fv3vg8

碩士 === 國立彰化師範大學 === 翻譯研究所 === 105 === In fictional narratives, the style of language a writer adopts can often have a direct and profound influence on the stylistic effects it brings forth. Jane Austen is known for her use of free indirect speech, which is said to blend the narrator’s speech with the character’s speech, creating the effect of the narrator mimicking or mocking the characters. Previous studies have suggested that, due to the discrepancies between the source language and the target language, certain translational difficulties may arise from translating free indirect speech. The present study uses Pride and Prejudice and its translations as case study materials, in an attempt to find out what strategies translators employ to deal with the free indirect speech source texts in Pride and Prejudice. The source texts collected in this research are categorized based on the discourse markers of free indirect speech, and three popular translations of Pride and Prejudice are used in the research. The present thesis found that when translating free indirect speech texts, there are some commonly used translation strategies, with colloquialization, clarification of pronominal references or character titles, the addition of transitive action or perception verbs, and the addition of punctuation devices being the more used. The results of the study suggest that making the target text more colloquial is an important tactic for the translation of free indirect speech. Towards a better translational effort with this type of narrative speech in the future, the study also points out some possible directions.