Translating Style

The visibility of translators in translated texts has been increasingly recognised, yet research on the translator's voice and the methodological issues concerned has remained sparse. This book examines four Chinese translations of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea (1952), by Hai Guan (1957), Wu Lao (1987), Li Xiyin (1987) and Zhao Shaowei (1987). It adopts an interdisciplinary approach, combining systemic linguistics and corpus methods with sociohistorical research within a descriptive framework to study the translator's discursive presence in the text. The investigation concerns the rendering of transitivity, modality, direct speech and free direct thought presentation as well as the transitions of modes of point of view. It inquires into the causes of variation in style between the four translators. The analysis sheds light on the feasibility of using an integrated approach to conduct empirical research in Translation Studies. It is resourceful to those who apply systemic linguistics with corpora to the study of Chinese translated texts, and to those who look into the reception and rendition of The Old Man and the Sea in China between two historical periods of modern China.