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Abstract Beijing local-color literature is one of the major literary schools in modern and contemporary Chinese literature. It has narrated the city stories of Beijing about one hundred years since the early 20th Century. Beijing local-color literature mainly dwells upon the sorrows and happiness in the daily life of the average citizens in Beijing. The literary school exhibits its “Beijingness”, the Beijing local-coloredness, mainly through its language, narrative and local culture.
The English translation has boosted the transmission of Beijing local-color literature in the English world. The core of the English translation of Beijing local-color literature lies in the authentic representation of Beijingness in its language, narrative and culture. Firstly, Beijing local-color literature manifests its “Beijingness” in its local-color language constituted by its local dialects and literary colloquialism. On the one hand, the goal of the translation of Beijing local-color language emphasizes the effective representation of the local-colored literary style of familiarity and colloquialism rather than a “dialect to dialect” translation strategy, because there is no common law for the equivalence of dialects between different cultures and languages. On the other hand, the authentic representation of Beijing local-color language in the target texts highlights the importance of the characteristics of the target language, which requires translators to have a skillful mastery of the English rhetoric and enables the translators to employ proper rhetorical devices to rewrite the deviant features of Beijing local-color language and enhance the Beijingness and readability in the English translation.
Secondly, the narrative techniques are the important approach that Beijing local-color literature employs to embody its Beijingness in its texts. The narrators in Beijing local-color literature sometimes “trespass” the boundaries of the story world through narrative voice, and therefore speak the words and phrases of the characters with the “familiar” voice of an average Beijing citizen. The narrator might shift his narrating point of view from omniscience to the characters in the story, perceive the world through the “mind style” of an average Beijing citizen, and consequently the narrative produces a sense of “familiarity” of Beijingness, the local-coloredness, in the text. As some narrative techniques are the common art shared by both Chinese literature and English literature, the Beijingness in its narrative can be reproduced in the target language by the translators with the awareness of narrative analysis in their translations. Therefore, the reproduction of the genuine Beijingness in the narrative requires the translator’s proficient mastery of interdisciplinary appreciation of literary art in both the source language and the target language. Through the emphasis on interdisciplinary literary appreciation in translation, the translators are enabled to represent the Beijingness in the English translation and depicts the picturesque Beijing city life and its lively local characters.
Thirdly, the reproduction of the Beijing local culture values the authentic presentation of the traditional Chinese culture and the daily life of Beijing citizens. Literary translation is not only a reproduction of the literary world in the translation, but it also reconstructs the cultural identity in the translated text. Under the context of globalization, translators as cross-cultural mediators should realize the cultural differences, understand the ways of constructing cultural identity and thereby bridge up the gap of cultural differences and avoid cultural misreading in their literary translations.
In conclusion, Beijing local-color literature is enriched with multi-dimensional Beijing local literary art and culture. The English translation of Beijing local-color literature is the cross-cultural reproduction of literary works, so the authentic representation of the Beijingness in the English translations requires translators’ mastery of interdisciplinary literary appreciation and awareness of cross-cultural mediation, in addition to their translation competence. The translators should enhance their art of interdisciplinary literary appreciation and translation and employ interdisciplinary translation strategies to improve their cross-cultural mediating competence, thereby bridging up the gap between the source culture and the target culture, improving the reproduction of Beijingness, its local-coloredness, in the English translation.
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Published: 21 October 2023
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