East Asian Languages and Societies Commons^™

On The Dimension Of Narrative: Zhang Ailing’S Self Translation Of Her Novel, Spring-Sprout Song, Xiaoqing Liu

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Zhang Ailing, in her self-translation of The Rice-Sprout Song from English to Chinese, made a special effort to adopt a Chinese narrative style. This style includes the Chinese way of depicting events, an emphasis on the narration of non-events, the addition and highlighting of the technique of irony, a strong lyrical tone, a simple and straightforward way of portraying characters, and the tailoring of narrative structure. Nevertheless, Zhang did not make her Chinese translation depart significantly from her "original" English writing, except for the last chapter, which was changed for other reasons. Rather, she made the changes in a subtle …