Abstract :

Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out (《生死疲劳》), published in 2006 and translated into English by Howard Goldblatt(2008), was written out by Mo Yan(莫言, 2006) in just forty-three days. This work is characterized by traditional Chinese novels with captions for each chapter and the folk narration. Its Chinese-version and English-version are both worthy of being studied. This paper attempts to take the theory of narratology as a tool, and the translation worked by Howard Goldblatt as the object, analyze and compare the source text and the target text in terms of narrative point of view and narrative speech to see if the rendition has successfully reproduced those narrative features, and thus illustrate the influence of the transference of narrative style exerted on the conveyance of the thematic significance and aesthetic values of the source text.

Key words：Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out； narratology； Howard Goldblatt； narrative point of view； narrative speech

摘要:

《生死疲劳》是莫言利用 43 天写出的长篇力作，2006 年在国内出版  2008 年即由葛浩文教授译为英文。该著作以章回体与民间叙事为特征,其中文版和英文版都值得关注和研究。叙事学在当代西方小说批评中占有十分重要的地位。这一理论指导译者在进行小说翻译实践时,必须首先抓住原作的叙事风格,并通过准确再现原作中的叙事类型和叙事技巧来实现对原作艺术和审美价值的传达。本文拟借助文学批评中发展己较为成熟,然而却极少参与文学翻译批评的叙事学理论,以葛浩文的英译本为研究对象,分别从叙事视角和叙事话语这两个方面,对比原著和译本,分析译本是如何成功地再现了以上的叙事特点。

关键词： 《生死疲劳》； 叙事学； 葛浩文； 叙事视角； 叙事话语

1. Introduction
    Mo Yan, the first Chinese national to be awarded by the Nobel, is one of the most prominent contemporary Chinese writers best known to the West. The famous American sinologist translator Howard Goldblatt plays an indispensable role in introducing Mo’s works to the Western readers. Mo’s novel Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out (Chinese-version), published in 2006 and English version Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out translated by Goldblatt made him the winner of the 2009 Newman Prize for Chinese Literature, and also The Washington Post Book World Best Book. Howard Goldblatt has all but single-handedly introduced contemporary Chinese literature to the English-speaking world.