On Changes of Narrative Focalization and Narrative Voice in Fiction Translation: A Case Study of Tales of Hulan River and Goldblatt’s Translation

Abstract

Based on the Chinese corpus of Tales of Hulan River and its English translation, this paper analyzes the narrative discourse from the perspective of “Point of View” and “voice” at the sentence level, and explores the implications of discourse translation for the artistic reproduction of the novel’s narrative. The study attempts to generalize the differences in focalization and discourse between the source text and the target text, and discusses the results of these variations in two ways: firstly, the naturalization and oneness of focalization, and discourse style, the destruction of the child’s perspective; and secondly, the loss of narrative hierarchy and colloquial feature in the translation.