3    Syntactic Style and System of Stylistic Markers    5
3.1    Syntax and Its Functions    5
3.2    System of Stylistic Markers    6
3.2.1    Recognizability of Style    6
3.2.2    Translatability of Style    7
3.2.3    Appropriateness    8
3.3    Three Major Methods of Style Translation    9
3.3.1    Corresponding    9
3.3.2    Recasting    10
3.3.3    Decolouring or Generalizing    11
4    Reproduction of Syntactic Style in Zhang’s Selected Modern Chinese Essays    12
4.1    Corresponding vs Parallelism, Repetition, Rhetorical Question    12
4.2    Recasting vs Short, Compound, and Complex Sentences    15
4.3    Decolouring or Generalizing vs Culture-loaded Expressions    17
5    Conclusion    20
References    22
Stylistic Approach to the Reproduction of the Syntactic Styles of Zhang Peiji’s Selected Modern Chinese Essays
1    Introduction
    Prose, a literary style, is prevailing in the contemporary history of China. It features ample and genuine emotions in an unaffected and inartificial written form, which distinguishes it amidst various literary works. Unlike Chinese classical poem and classic novels, however, Chinese prose has not gained much attention from translators; nevertheless, its charm makes it worthwhile to translate it and present it to the world. In light of this, it is very natural that Selected Modern Chinese Essays, translated by Professor Zhang Peiji, are gaining great popularity among scholars and learners at home and abroad. These prose writings are mostly written after the May 4th Movement of 1919. By reading this work of translation, readers can appreciate not only the literary works by distinguished writers but also the tune of the times.
Stylistics, which links literary criticism to linguistics, studies what is going on within the language and interprets texts in regard to their linguistic and tonal style. Literary stylistics is commonly considered as a study of the transformation from norms to deviations. Linguistic stylistics usually covers the study of levels of speech, genres, writing style of a particular author, language deviations of a particular school and its general writing style. According to the established theories, stylistic features are recognizable, which demonstrates the translatability of the style from the source language to the target language. When stylistic approach is adopted to guide the translator’s work or to assess the translation quality, it calls for both the analysis of the stylistic features of the source text and the appropriate reproduction of these features in the target text. Notably, though bearing certain originality in the translation process, the reproduction of the stylistic features of the target text is still dependent upon those of the source text.
Literary works differentiate themselves by their notable styles. The Chinese essay of course has developed its unique style through many ages. Since Zhang’s translation of modern Chinese essays comes out, there are various studies on it, but most of them are lacking in systematic and scientific interpretation. Different from the former subjective assessment of Zhang’s version, this paper is to take a stylistic approach and a critical attitude to help appreciate and assess Zhang’s version, particularly in regard to the reproduction of the syntactic styles of these essays. A sentence is regarded as an elementary unit for translation, and syntactic features of the source text certainly should be represented in the target text. Only by doing so, can the translator be able to guarantee that the styles of the target text are dependent on those of the source text and that he is original in using possible methods to reproduce them. 从文体学角度评析张培基《英译中国现代散文选》句式风格再现(2):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_47745.html