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Article published In: Target
Vol. 16:2 (2004) ► pp.227–252

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Repetition and signification

A study of textual accountability and perlocutionary effect in literary translation

 | City University of Hong Kong
Published online: 12 October 2005
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https://doi.org/10.1075/target.16.2.03zhu
The paper begins with an overview of the relevance of functional/text linguistics, skopos theory, and the cultural-studies approach to the study of (literary) translation. It then examines the textual significance of leitmotifs as ‘vertical translation units’, since both are found to be related to repetitions of a rank-free text element in formulating a network of signification. In leitmotif-conscious translating, it argues, the accountability between the source and target texts can be observed at this level of textual network, while the translation, as a literary text, may induce different perlocutionary effects when functioning in a different cultural milieu.
Résumé
L’article commence par donner une vue d’ensemble des apports possibles de disciplines comme la linguistique fonctionnelle et textuelle, la théorie du “skopos”, et les études culturelles, à la traductologie. Il se penche ensuite sur la signification textuelle de motifs comme les “unités verticales de la traduction”, qui sont liées à des répétitions d’éléménts de rang indépendant au cours de la formulation de réseaux de significations. Un processus de traduction attentif à pareils motifs permet de montrer le rapport entre texte-source et texte-cible, tandis que le texte littéraire qui en résulte peut induire des effets perlocutionnaires différents lorsqu’il s’insère dans un autre milieu culturel. Cette étude doit être située dans le contexte plus large de l’analyse du discours et du texte (littéraire).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.What kind of linguistics?
  • 3.Why (not) literary texts and literary translation?
  • 4.Leitmotif as VTU in literary translation: The mapping of a textual network
  • 5.Operation of leitmotif as VTU: Some case examples
    • 5.1From Chinese translations of John Galsworthy’s The apple tree
    • 5.2From Chinese translations of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The great Gatsby
  • 6.Discussion: Textual network, effect, and apurposiveness of literary translating
    • 6.1Accountability for the network of signification: Leitmotif as VTU
    • 6.2The apurposiveness of artistic creation: From illocutionary to perlocutionary
  • 7.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
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