Translation of Speech-Act in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: A Pragmatic Contrastive Analysis of Reporting Verbs

• Main Authors: Shu-chuan Chen, 陳淑娟
• Other Authors: Yi-ping Wu
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/31285616944291063068

碩士 === 國立高雄第一科技大學 === 應用英語所 === 98 === Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is considered one of the great American novels. Twain impresses readers with Huck’s colloquial narrating style. The present study aims to probe into how the speech-act reporting verbs are rendered by four translators (Zhang You-song, Li Yu-han, Wen Yi-hong, Jia Wen-hao and Jia Wen-yuan) in Taiwan. We analyze two types of reporting verbs: the neutral verbs (such as say) and the illocutionary verbs (such as agree, explain, beg, promise etc.). Wieslaw Oleksy’s pragmatic contrastive analysis (PCA) model is applied to investigate the renderings of the reporting verbs from three aspects: locutionary component, illocutionary component and the sociocultural context. The findings show that when rendering the neutral verb say, most translators translate it literally in direct and indirect discourses. But if say appears in the direct discourse which appears to be a question or a response in the dialogue, it is likely for the translators to alter the locutionary act. When translating the illocutionary verbs, the translators tend to produce more variations in their translations. The most prevalent practice is to translate them literally. The other way is to weaken their illocutionary forces by rendering them into neutral verbs such as say. A strategy used frequently by the translators is to intensify the particular locutionary manner by adding adverbs or adverbial phrases. In addition, the narrative point of view embedded in the speech act representation is found altered. Overall speaking, the translators do well in transferring the literal meanings denoted in the original reporting verbs, but they do not pay consistent attention to reproduce their connoted meanings in the context of speech act representation. They fail to elaborate on the illocutionary force intended by the original. To demonstrate how the translator could manipulate the illocutionary force due to the performative nature of the speech act representation, some of the examples are chosen for retranslation. We adopt pragmatic approach to interpret the illocutionary component encoded in the reporting verbs used by the narrator or the character and then select suitable Chinese reporting verbs or linguistic expressions (locutionary component) to translate the speech act representation. It can be concluded that when dealing with the locutionary elements of the reporting verbs, most translators tend to translate these verbs literally. Less attention is paid to reproduce the illocutionary force or effect the narrator’s or character’s speech intends to perform. Judged from the pragmatic perspective, such a rendering fails to capture the strength of the illocutionary force intended by the original speech act. Since the use of different strategies may result in the production of distinct illocutionary forces, the translators should pay consistent attention to reproduce the connoted meanings in the context of speech act representation.