Abstract
Chinese vernacular fiction is characterized by a simulated storytelling mode through which the narrator manipulates narration and facilitates interaction with the reader. There is little research on the representation of this distinctive Chinese narrative mode across languages and cultures. Recently scholars in translation studies have begun to focus on how different types and levels of voice are represented in translated texts. The present article investigates how the overt voice of the simulated storyteller characterizing the Chinese vernacular narrative style is represented in three complete English translations of a Chinese classic entitled Shuihu Zhuan. The article includes a comparative study of how the storyteller-narrator manifests his narrative voice through storytelling formulae and rhetorical narratorial questions and more importantly, on how the storyteller-narrator’s voice has been rendered by different translators. Besides, by relating the reproduction of narrative voice to translatorship, it shows that the professional role and status of each translator influence their strategy-making as to whether, and to what extent, the narrative voice of the source text should be reconstructed.
Introduction
Shuihu Zhuan is a masterpiece of Chinese vernacular fiction that has attracted the attention of novelists, scholars, and translators from around the globe. The novel has been commented on, critiqued, and studied by Chinese critics, scholars, and even important political figures (Jin, 1980; Li, 1980; Mao, 2011; etc.). Since 1608, this canonical novel has been rendered into over 20 languages, thus making it accessible to contemporary readers worldwide. In English alone, there exist over 40 different versions, including full versions, abridged versions, and adaptions. These translations are enjoyed by people from different cultural backgrounds and are frequently adapted into cartoons and feature films to meet the needs of an ever-growing number of new and young readers. To some extent, Shuihu Zhuan has been acclaimed as a canonical novel in world literature (e.g., Hanan, 1981; Plaks, 1987/1993, 2011).
Translations of Shuihu Zhuan have attracted academic attention since the 1960s. Research pertaining to translations of Shuihu Zhuan comprises over 200 texts, including journal articles, monographs, Ph.D. theses, and Master’s theses, according to the publication data from the CNKI, the most comprehensive academic publications database in China. These investigations discuss a wide range of issues, including cultural terms, translation strategies, dissemination of translated texts, retranslations, style of the translator, and translator identity. However, one important topic is absent from the studies: voice.
Voice has been most studied from the angle of translation (Prince, 2014, p. 24). Scholars introduce the concept of voice not only from such adjacent disciplines as linguistics and literary studies, but also from other social sciences like sociology and communication studies. For this reason, their focus and research agenda can vary. So far, various types of voices in translation have been investigated by such scholars as Schiavi (1996), Hermans (1996), O’Sullivan (2006), Schabert (2010), Alvstad (2013, 2014), and Law and Ng (2020), among many others. Some describe how the narrator’s voice and other types of textual voices are manifested in a translated text, while others study voice in relation to the translatorship and the agents who are involved in the translation activities. In the former case, Schabert (2010) finds how French translations of the English novel Shirley render the narrator masculine because of the past participles and adjectives used in them whereas, in the source text, “the narrator’s masculine gender is not made explicit” until the very end (p. 78). She mentions that the French renditions of some English novels usually present their narrator as androcentric while the English text features an “ambi-gendered narrative voice” (Schabert, 2010, p. 80).
In the latter case, many studies are found to have focused on the translator’s voice. Schiavi (1996) argued for the eminence of translator’s voice in the translated text, a voice which “is in part standing in for the author’s and in part autonomous” and “this voice creates a privileged relationship with the readers of translation, part mediational, part straightforward” (p. 3). O’Sullivan (2006) discusses the translator’s voice concerning “the kind of largely paratextual interventions” outlined by Hermans (1996) and argues that “translation results in changes to the narrator or narrative voice of the translated text, usually as a consequence of ideological factors that play a role in the translator’s decisions.”
Chinese vernacular fiction is characterized by a so-called simulated storytelling mode with an over narrator standing out to tell the story, which is a frequent topic in sinology and Chinese literature whether abroad or at home. The most influential studies presented in English include, among others, Hanan (1967, 1981), Plaks (1977, 1987/1993, 2011), Liu (1962/1988), and Hsia (1984/1996). Given the frequency by which the Chinese storytelling mode is discussed in sinology and Chinese literary studies, it is important to explore how this particular storytelling mode is transferred across cultures. So far little research has been conducted on the translation or representation of the Chinese narrative mode into other languages, not to mention from a particular aspect such as voice.
The present study approaches the reproduction of the Chinese narrative mode from the perspective of narrative voice. It investigates how the overt voice of a simulated storyteller in the Chinese vernacular novel Shuihu Zhuan is represented in different translations by focusing on how narrative voice is rendered, and by relating the textual voice to the role of the translator, to account for the different strategies used by translators to convey the narrative voice based on each translator’s professional background and cultural identity. It analyses three target texts: All Men Are Brothers (hereafter abbreviated as TT1) by Pearl S. Buck (1933), Outlaws of the Marsh (TT2) by Shapiro (1980), and The Marshes of Mount Liang (TT3) by Dent-Young and Dent-Young (2010) because these three are full translations of Shuihu Zhuan while others are found to be condensed, abridged or excerpted versions.
Chinese Simulated Storytelling Mode and its Overt Narrative Voice
The kinship between the rise of Chinese vernacular fiction and the storytelling convention is a topic of heated debate in Chinese literature studies, the historiography of Chinese classical novels, and sinology. Previous studies reveal that Chinese vernacular fiction was originated from the “prompt books” (底本) on which the popular art form of storytelling or shuoshu (说书) was based and that the professional storytellers in the medieval China relied on such “prompt books” in preparation for, or during, an oral performance (Gu, 2006; Hanan, 1981). The Chinese vernacular fiction could thus be deemed as derived from the popular oral storytelling of the Song and Yuan periods. As Hsia (1984/1996) finds, “nearly all traditional novels observe in their episodic structure the storyteller’s mode of narration” (p. 17). The storytelling mode of narration presupposes the presence of a know-all storyteller who seems to stand beyond the story to manipulate the narration. The narration process is more like a communicative situation than a mode of self-expression. The storyteller functions as an assumed addresser addressing an audience of assumed addressees, and this addresser frequently asserts himself as a narrator in the process of dialoguing with the audience. In a similar manner to an oral communication scenario, the narrative voice of a storyteller-narrator is pervasive in Chinese classical vernacular fiction and is made most explicit through a wide range of devices.
Besides typographical conventions such as paragraphing and chapter divisions, the narrative of Chinese vernacular fiction depends much on the channels of commentary and summary by the storyteller-narrator. There are several typical summary formulae used in Chinese vernacular fiction: time summaries such as “当夜无事” [nothing happened on that night]; spatial summaries such as “于路无话” [nothing to be told on the road]; and summaries of a character or an event such as “且不说. . .只说” [not to mention. . ., but to talk about. . .]. Such formulaic summaries work in the same way as the “self-conscious narration” defined by Chatman (1980, p. 228), which is the most explicit tool that a narrator can apply to manipulate his narration. Their prominent presence in the narrative is characteristic of the traditional storytelling mode. By employing such summative discourse, the storyteller-narrator can make his telling briefer than the event recounted or control the pace and tempo of narration (Chatman, 1980). In the narrative intervals created by these summaries, the narrator also inserts commentaries and constantly raises simulated rhetorical questions to his addressees. Such commentaries and questions not only “attract the reader’s attention, increasing their interest, but also heighten suspense and improve the narration’s efficiency” (Wang, 2020:135). Finally, toward the close of each chapter, a summative comment initiated by “有分教” [as can be seen] is used to convey the narrator’s interpretation of and judgment on the key episodes that have happened, together with an appellative ending “且听下回分解” [please hear the story to be told in the next chapter] predicting what will happen in the next chapter.
Like summative and commentary story-telling formulae, rhetorical questions also presuppose both an asker and an answerer in a communicative scenario who theoretically can react and reply. Through the pervasive use of rhetorical questions in the narration, the narrator “makes his presence tangibly felt, ostensibly guiding the reader toward particular judgments on characters and events” (Wang, 2020, p. 137). It is this fact that allows the rhetorical questions to be used by the novelists to make direct addresses to the reader, inviting attention, interest, and even judgments on the events that they relate and on the characters that they describe. Perhaps because rhetorical questions mark a style of direct address to the narratee or the addressee, they are widely applied in Shuihu Zhuan to accommodate the inherent colloquial style of the novel.
The abovementioned characteristic patterns of voice by a storyteller-narrator distinguish the simulated storytelling mode of Chinese vernacular fiction from Western narrative techniques. The role of a narrator can be posited on a balancing scale “from a nearly covert one to one that is extremely overt” and the overt narrator always has his presence felt by the reader (Chatman, 1980, pp. 197–225). According to Chatman’s definition, the storyteller in Chinese vernacular fiction is an overt narrator who frequently intrudes into the fictional world while remaining outside the narration. As Hanan (1981) summarizes, the overt voice of a storyteller-narrator in Chinese vernacular fiction is visible everywhere: “in explicit reference to the story being told, in simulated questions asked of the audience, in simulated dialog with the audience, in the sharp demarcation of the various modes, and even in the relative uniformity of style from chapter to chapter, even from work to work” (p. 20).
The Narrative Voice in Translation
This part offers a brief review of the analytical procedure, data sources, and the analytical framework employed in the study. Narrative voice as a narratological category “subsumes the narrator, narratee, and narration,” all of which “work together to influence how the story is presented to the readers” (Alvstad & Assis Rosa, 2015, p. 3). As described above, the characteristic narrative mode of Chinese vernacular fiction has its origins in the use of storytelling formulae by an oral narrator throughout the story. Formulaic expressions such as “话说” [it is said], “且不说. . .只说” [not to mention. . ., but to talk about. . .] are used by the storyteller-narrator to control the tempo of narration, solve the problem of transition and overtly mark his presence. Besides, simulated rhetorical questions also count as a crucial ingredient in the colloquial style of Chinese vernacular fiction. The storyteller-narrator employs them to manipulate his narration and guide his listener or reader to understand the story in a particular way as the storyteller expects, so they also evince the voice of the overt storyteller. The storytelling formulae and the simulated questions used by the storyteller may both fall under the most explicit manifestation of an overt narrator while the discursive presence of the narrative voice by other means is not so explicit as the aforesaid two types. In summary, the voice pattern of the Chinese storytelling mode can be shown schematically in Figure 1.
The voice pattern of the Chinese storytelling narrative mode.
As diagrammed above, Chinese vernacular fiction like Shuihu Zhuan adopts a simulated story-telling mode which entails frequent interaction between the narrator and the audience through storytelling formulae from the beginning to the end of every episodic chapter in a repetitive pattern, simulated questions asked of the audience by the narrator and other means of the discursive presence of the story-teller-narrator. This paper examines the first two types of textual features that manifest narrative voice more prominently and formally significant, namely, storytelling formulae and rhetorical questions. It will analyse data derived from a parallel corpus of three English translations and the 71-chapter Chinese original of Shuihu Zhuan. Although it is widely known there are different versions of Shuihu Zhuan, what they have in common is the first 71 chapters. On one hand, the analysis is corpus-based, and therefore it is necessary to conduct a quantitative investigation. On the other hand, proper contextualization is a significant step to achieve an in-depth understanding of how various patterns of voice are deployed by the narrator in different translations to influence the target readers’ conceptualization of the fictional world and to advocate certain cultural and literary values.
Translation of Storytelling Formulae
To obtain the data of storytelling formulae in each target text, we conduct a statistical survey to examine the discursive presence of self-conscious narration that manifests itself mainly through repetitive, formulaic storytelling expressions. We derive a sub-corpus of 36 chapters, that is, every other chapter of the total. This subset of chapters is sufficient to provide a thorough picture of the distribution of storytelling formulae in the three translations. The frequency distribution of storytelling formulae in TT1, TT2, and TT3 by chapter is shown in Figure 2. The horizontal axis demonstrates chapter numbers and the vertical axis, frequencies of translated storytelling formulae throughout chapters. The statistics show that the three translations of Shuihu Zhuan render Chinese storytelling formulae in distinctively different ways.
Frequency distribution of translated storytelling formulae in TTs.
TT1 demonstrates the highest frequency of storytelling formulae with an occurrence of 13 times per chapter on average. The translator Buck retains 100% of the beginning marker of the storytelling mode “话说” [the story tells. . .] in TT1. All of the chapters in TT1 begin with an inaugural discoursal marker “IT IS SAID” in capitalized letters, which makes the narrative mode of TT1 distinct from that of most novels in the target system. A retrospective study from the target approach finds that Buck even applies the strategy of addition in certain places, especially when no beginning storytelling formula is applied in several chapters of the source text. Buck foregrounded “IT IS SAID” as the most eminent discoursal marker of the voice pattern in all chapters of her translation. Example (1) is the initial sentence of Chapter 15 where the original narrator does not start with the formula “话说” and yet Buck still adds “IT IS SAID” to initiate narration in her translation.
(1): 当时公孙胜正在阁儿里对晁盖说这北京生辰纲. . .[At that time, Gongsun Sheng was telling Chao Gai about the birthday convoy to Beijing. . .]
TT1:
As Kung Sun Sheng was in the little corner room talking and as he said to Ch’ao Kai. . .
Within each chapter, Buck also faithfully reproduces all of the storytelling formulae featuring the overt voice of the storyteller-narrator by observing the original Chinese storytelling mode. In TT1, the narrator uses multiple storytelling formulae to regulate the pace of narration and facilitate the development of the plot. For example, the imperative “let. . . be told” regularly appears to shift the narration about one character or event to that of another one. By faithfully adhering to the narrative pattern of the source text, toward the close of every chapter except for the last, TT1 ends the narration with a simulated rhetorical question asked of the addressees and followed by the directive, “Pray hear it be told in the next chapter.”
TT2 exhibits the lowest frequency of storytelling formulae with the least frequency of fewer than five in each chapter. In TT2, each chapter enters into the plot directly, without any discoursal label on the narrative level. The narrator does not start his narration with a “replay” part, unlike the source text, which is usually initiated by “话说” [the story tells. . .], a storytelling formula applied by the overt storyteller to recapitulate what has taken place in the previous chapter. For example, at the very beginning of Chapter 24, the original narrator starts narration by recapitulating what happened at the end of the previous chapter through the commencing formula “话说.” However, TT2 does not retain the beginning formula “话说” and accordingly the “replay” part “当下郓哥被王婆打了这几下，心中没出气处[Yunge was beaten by Wang Po and there was no way for him to release his anger]” is also omitted in this translation.
(2)
径奔来街上，直来寻武大郎。. . . [The story tells that Yunge was beaten by Wang Po and there was no way for him to release his anger but to take up his baskets of snow pears, running straight to the street to find Wu Dalang.]
TT2: The aggrieved boy, basket in hand, went in search of Wu the Elder.
Following a consistent reduction tendency, TT2 fails to conclude each chapter with the formulaic expression “直教” as warranted by the narrative convention of the source literary system, according to which “直教” is a regular storytelling discourse to initiate a separate couplet of verse-form commentary by the narrator. Moreover, the couplet in TT2 is in turn reduced to plain description instead of narratorial commentary. Within chapters, TT2 features the least frequency of storytelling formulae among the three translations. For these reasons, the voice of the extradiegetic storyteller vanishes from this translation.
TT3 shows a medium number of storytelling formulae. It is noteworthy that the dominant strategy that its translators, the Dent-Youngs, apply is replacement, that is, replacing storytelling formulae with narratorial devices of the target literary system. Consequently, the stylistic effect of this translation is distinct from that of TT1 and TT2. An extensive investigation of the occurrences of storytelling narrative markers in TT3 finds that it adheres to its distinctive voice pattern in telling the story. The Dent-Youngs tend to draw on time deixis such as “now” and “meanwhile” at the discourse level in nearly half (47.03%) of the total cases. As shown in the following example, in TT3 the narrator starts narration with the single time referent “now,” whereas in TT1 the narrator initiates the narration by way of the self-conscious comment, “Let it be told now of the villagers.”
(3)
TT1 (All Men Are Brothers):
TT2 (Outlaws of the Marsh): The vassals, leading over twenty others armed with spears and clubs, came rushing back to the thatched house.
TT3 (The Marshes of Mount Liang):
In English narrative, “now” is deemed as an indicator of deixis that expresses proximal reference in the narratorial discourse, because it stipulates “the time at which the speaker is speaking” (Simpson, 2004, p. 12). For the above reason, “now” is used to guide the readers to go closer to the fictional cosmos and thus bridge the distance between the narrator and the narrated world as well as between the narrated world and the reader, and as such, in TT3, it serves as a narrative aid catering to the reading habits of the target readers. Because “now” fulfils a certain function in evincing the narratorial voice and regulating the narrating process according to the tradition of the target literary system, it is justified as a replacement of the original storytelling formula “话说” [the story tells. . .]. In TT3, “now” is used in the narrating process within chapters more frequently than any other alternative. When acting as narrative clues of the narrator, deictic words such as “now” are to some extent functionally equivalent to the storytelling formulae of the source text – they regulate the narrative tempo and gage the distance between the reader, the narratee and the narrative itself.
Rhetorical Questions in Translation
Rhetorical questions usually take the form of a question but the force of a statement or declaration. In the usual case, because the addresser knows that the answer to the rhetorical question stands opposite to the proposition, rhetorical questions can create a simulated communicative scenario between the addresser and the addressee while functioning as assertions. This fact also explains why they are pervasively used by the storyteller in Shuihu Zhuan. In the source corpus, 107 instances of rhetorical questions were found. The rhetorical questions in the corpus can be classified into two types: (1) questions fulfilling a function at the narrative level (such as conveying a particular tone of the narrator and shifting the narrative space), and (2) questions leading to narratorial or authorial overt intrusion into the story. Example (1) is an instance of the first category of rhetorical questions. In the course of narrating that Captain Lu or Lu Da killed the bully, Zheng Tu with his fists in Chapter 2, the narrator asks two rhetorical questions:
(1) 两边看的人惧怕鲁提辖，
The above rhetorical questions not only convey the somewhat factious somewhat satirical tone of the narrator toward the event but also helps to accelerate the development of the plot. The narrator asks such simulated questions to suppress rising doubt from his audience and to explain why nobody stopped Lu Da from killing Zheng Tu. Moreover, the second rhetorical question switches the narrative space from the spot where Zheng Tu was killed by Lu Da to Lu Da’s living place, thus facilitating the narrative tempo by omitting unnecessary narration on how Lu Da got escaped while at the same time, justifying the verisimilitude of the event to convince the addressees of the storyteller’s account. When translated into English, the rhetorical questions in Example (1) manifest various forms:
TT1 (All Men Are Brothers): The onlookers on all sides were afraid of Lu Ta and which one dared to go before him to placate him? . . . And of the neighbors in the street and of the clerks in the shop, which one dared to come forward and stop him?
TT2 (Outlaws of the Marsh): The spectators were all afraid of Lu Da. None of them ventured to intervene. . . .Neither the butcher’s assistants nor the clerks in the neighboring shops had the courage to stop him.
TT3 (The Marshes of Mount Liang): The spectators were terrified of Lu Da, who dared to interfere? . . .Which of the neighbors or the butcher’s assistants dared stand in the way?
Among the three translations, TT1 and TT3 retain the form of rhetorical questions. Negative answers are implied in these rhetorical questions to indicate the possible future direction of the storyline. Replicating the question forms of the original sentences helps to preserve the satirical tone of the narrator in their translations. In contrast, TT2 (“None of them ventured to intervene.” and “Neither the butcher’s assistants nor the clerks in the neighboring shops had the courage to stop him.”) transforms the original questions into negative statements and thus suppresses the interrogative voice of the narrator, simply conveying the meaning of the source sentences, while their form is neglected. Therefore, the communicative aspect of the story-telling mode implied in the rhetorical questions of the source text cannot be felt by the target readers in this translation.
Example (2) illustrates the second type of simulated rhetorical question that elicits interpretations about certain fictional elements or judgmental comments on an existent in the story, or even generalized truths.
TT1 (All Men Are Brothers): Now who was this man who spoke? It was that very one whom Wu Yung had commended to Sung Chiang.
He was surnamed Tai and named Chung and he was head of the two gaols in Chiang Chou and he was called chief of all the gaols of the cities of the Yangtse river in that time of the Sung Dynasty; all of the keepers of the gaols toward the southwest called him chief also. Now this Gaoler Tai had a certain magic skill he had learned from the Taoists . . .For this he was called The Magic Messenger.
TT2 (Outlaws of the Marsh): Who was this superintendent? He was none other than Dai Zong to whom Wu Yong had written a letter of introduction, the head of Jiangzhou’s two prisons. In Song times prison heads in the Jinling region were called “Master”; in the Hunan region they were known as “Superintendent.” Dai had an astonishing talent. . . . For this reason, everyone hailed him as Dai Zong the Marvelous Traveler.
TT3 (The Marshes of Mount Liang): But who do you suppose this person is with whom Song Jiang is talking? It is the very man whom the Professor recommended, that is to say, Dai Zong, chief superintendent of the two prisons in Jiangzhou. At that time, during the Song Dynasty, all the chief prison officers in the area of Jinling were called “officers of the court.” In Hunan the heads of gaols were all called “superintendent.” This Dai Zong, by the way, had an amazing Taoist power: . . . For this reason, he was known as Dai Zong the Magic Messenger.
Example (2) is selected from Chapter 37 which tells how Song Jiang meets Dai Zong, The Magic Messenger. In the previous narration of the event, the limited perspective of Song Jiang is adopted by the narrator to unfold the plot. Song Jiang was sent to a gaol in Jiang Zhou and was demanded to bribe the head of the gaol, but Song Jiang refused to pay the bribe. However, the head was not irritated but unexpectedly showed great respect and obedience to Song Jiang. The reader is invited to approach the whole event from Song Jiang’s limited point of view and is left in the dark as to who was the man. Sensing doubt and surprise in his reader, the omniscient narrator promptly re-asserts his authority by asking his addressees a simulated question: “说话的，你道那人是谁?” [Story-teller, who was that man you just talked about?]. The question serves several purposes. First, it responds with the key plot in Chapter 35 where Dai Zong was recommended by Wu Yong to Song Jiang through an introduction letter. Second, it elicits an interpretation of the character Dai Zong including his title, nickname, and his magic skill, and evokes a generalized truth about the official gaol system in the Song Dynasty. Last but not the least, the question is intended to solve the readers’ puzzle and arouse their interest in further details concerning the meeting between Song Jiang and Dai Zong. In Chinese vernacular fiction, this is a typical way for the storyteller-narrator to have the narration at his disposal and to randomly interact with addressees for certain effects, such as interpolation and suspense. When translating the question into English, the three translators unanimously chose to retain the syntactic structure of the original, albeit in slightly different forms. They seem to have a shared understanding of the special narrative effects of the second type of simulated rhetorical question, including but not limited to a transitional point in terms of plot development, a communicative device at the level of a colloquial commentary style or a supplementary tool of narration at the story level. On account of this common awareness, all of the three translators preserve the basic syntactic form of a simulated rhetorical question in their respective target text by every possible means to bring about the same or similar narrative effects on the target readers as the source text does on the source readers.
A comparative study of both types of rhetorical questions and how they are represented in each target text reflects an intricate relationship between the kind of rhetorical questions and the strategies adopted by the translator. The findings report that, regarding the first type of rhetorical questions that fulfill a function at the narrative level, Buck retains the same syntactic structure of the original text, a consistent inclination toward the adequacy of the source text, while the other two translators, particularly Shapiro, ignore the syntactic characteristics of these rhetorical constructions and turn them into unornamented statements. In our corpus, this type of simulated rhetorical questions comprises about three-quarters of the total, that is, 79 out of 107 instances (Table 1).
Translations of the First Type of Rhetorical Questions.
Of the 79 instances of the first type of rhetorical questions, (TT1) Buck adopts the strategy of retention in 89.87% places, which means that she retains the same rhetorical form in these places. In 8.86% places, she applies the strategy of modification, that is, changing the original rhetorical question to a question of another form, and in merely one instance she converts the question to a statement. In TT2, Shapiro retains the form of the rhetorical question only in 5.06% instances; in 15.19% places, the form of the original rhetorical question is modified slightly, and in the remaining 79.75% places the sometimes facetious, satirical or ironic voice of the narrator implied in the rhetorical question is displaced by a monotone of plain and affirmative accounts. For the Dent-Youngs (TT3), in 10.13% instances, they keep the same form of a rhetorical question as the source text, while in 32.91% instances they use a slightly different interrogative configuration. In a relatively large proportion of 56.96% instances, they convert rhetorical questions—which they had believed to possess a certain dramatic quality (Dent-Young & Dent-Young, 2010)—to unembellished statements.
When it comes to the second type of rhetorical question, that is, questions leading to narratorial or authorial overt intrusion into the story, however, the three translators demonstrate similarity in their strategy-making, as shown in Table 2.
Translations of the Second Type of Rhetorical Questions.
The same or similar tendency toward the retention strategy among the three translators reveals that the rhetorical questions bearing commentarial features and having narrative significance that affect the story level are more likely to be realized and reserved by the translators, even by those with relatively limited stylistic awareness. This type of rhetorical question is usually elicited and responded by the narrator himself whereby the narrator plays the roles of both a speaker and a listener in an overt and even intrusive way. The three translators chose to reserve the effectiveness of the question form, probably because retaining this type of rhetorical question not only reproduces the communicative aspect of the narratorial voice but also helps to adjust the pace or the angle of the narration and affects the development of the plot on the story level.
In contrast, the type of rhetorical question which mainly fulfils a function at the narrative level (such as signaling a particular tone of the narrator or shifting the narrative space) is more likely to be neglected by translators. There is no need to provide an answer to this type of rhetorical question, so Shapiro and the Dent-Youngs tend to present the information in an unengaging way by either transforming the questions into affirmative or negative statements. Because the first type of rhetorical questions occupies a greater proportion, the interactive dimension implied in the original simulated interaction between the narrator and the narratee is weakened. As a result, the overtness of the narratorial voice is also diminished in TT2 and TT3.
Translation of the Overt Narrative Voice and Reproduction of the Storytelling Mode
Most readers, including literary critics and scholars, are used to reading and writing about translations as if they were produced by the author, but translation scholars such as Schiavi (1996) and Hermans (1996) have provided a large number of examples demonstrating that the narrative of a translated text cannot be the author’s but must necessarily be the hybrid of both the author’s and the translator’s, if not being completely the translator’s. The present study reinforces the above scholars’ findings by revealing how translation may effect changes in the narrative voice of the translated text. It finds that the voice pattern in the target texts is quite different than in the original and varies considerably among the different translations.
The narrative of TT1 relies on the storytelling formula to facilitate the development of the story and control the narrative pace. Moreover, most of the rhetorical questions in TT1 remain formally the same as in the original, maintaining a somewhat humorous, ironical tone to manipulate the target reader’s mood. This translation reproduces the original’s narrative structure of an overt narrative voice bridging the distance between the narrator and the narratee as well as between the fictional world and the reader. Buck consistently tends to retain the narrative characteristics of the original in dealing with various features of narrative voice. By retaining and even adding proper narratorial discourse, TT1 recreates the simulated storytelling situation of the original and thus has, to an important degree, transplanted the overt narrative voice pattern from the source system to the target text. Because voice is the most significant factor that decides the way of narrating (Chatman, 1980; Genette, 1980), it is safe to say that TT1 evinces the characteristics of an overt narrative voice and as such, it retains the Chinese storytelling narration mode.
TT2 retains the least number of storytelling formulae, as a result of which the storyteller-narrator’s intended control of the narrative tempo is greatly reduced. Only a small percentage of rhetorical questions remain the same in form, and most have been transformed into plain descriptions or statements, thus reducing to a great extent the simulated interaction between the narrator and the narratee as well as between the narrator and the reader. Shapiro consistently demonstrates a general tendency to simplify the voice pattern, that is, slanting toward the acceptability of the target readership by adopting the strategies of modification and conversion. This corresponds to some previous findings, which argue that translation typically tends to simplify the voice structure of a text (Bosseaux, 2007; Alvstad & Assis Rosa, 2015). In Shapiro’s case, this tendency causes the loss of a simulated communicative storytelling atmosphere, a feature that is characteristic of the source text. With very limited use of narrative markers in the narrating process, the storyteller’s overt voice disappears and the hyperspace of a simulated storytelling situation recedes and therefore, TT2 deviates most from the original mode.
As Porter (1993, p. 112) observed, the narrative markers used in Chinese vernacular fiction enable the perceived distance between the narrator and the narratee to remain at a minimum because much of the thematic relationship between narrated events or objects is implied in them. In TT2, however, the narrative mode has changed for the most part to one that relies on showing rather than telling, close to the literary tradition of the target system. Thus, the “underlying psychological bond” among the narrator, the narratee, the reader and the narrative that characterizes an oral mode is absent in this target text. The colloquial style of Shuihu Zhuan, which features the pretense of face-to-face communication, is adapted to accommodate a plain, “written-to-be-read” style in English.
Like TT1, TT3 also represents story-telling formulae in most cases, but its translators tend to use narrative devices belonging to the literary tradition of the target system to make the presence of an overtly speaking narrator conspicuous. In dealing with rhetorical questions that affect narration at the story level, the Dent-Youngs retain the same or a similar question form in most cases, whereas when translating rhetorical questions that fulfill a function simply at the narrative level, they choose to transform them into unembellished statements. In the source text, it is precisely the great number of self-conscious storytelling formulae of the narrator and the constant simulated interaction between the narrator and the narratee that result in “a hybrid medium that represents a self-conscious mixing of varying levels of speech, ranging from the stylized and lofty language of the descriptive tableaus to the didactic summary of the storyteller/narrator” (Porter, 1993, p. 114). Because the narrative pattern of TT3 cannot reflect the interpersonal relationship between an assumed storyteller-narrator and an assumed audience, and despite its translators’ great efforts to provide as many narrative clues as possible in the narration process, this target text creates a different narrative mode from that of the source text, a mixed mode that seems to have combined different narrative traditions between East and West.
Translatorship in the Study of Voice in Translation
Recent studies on voice have revealed that shifts in the voice of the narrator may be productively viewed as an index of the translator’s voice in the text and a reflect of the translator’s role in their socio-cultural environment (Alvstad & Assis Rosa, 2015; O’Sullivan, 2006; Law & Ng, 2020). According to Alvstad and Assis Rosa (2015), in translated texts, “voices are in fact produced by real-life agents on the basis of source texts, constituted by different levels and types of voices that in turn also have been produced by source agents” (p. 4). On one hand, we can say that if the narrator plays the most significant role in regulating the communicative situation between the narrated text and the reader, the translator works in a similar way between the translated text and the target reader. On the other hand, unlike an original narrative communication, “the translated narrative communication has as a textual characteristic two addressers addressing one addressee” (Schiavi, 1996, p. 17). Between the narrative structure of the original and that of the translation, the translator negotiates all the specific patterns in the translated text. In this negotiating or translating process, the translator intercepts the communication, transmits it and reprocesses it to the new implied reader. The narrative mode of the translation is thus the result of the translator’s negotiation and mediation of both the set of presuppositions underlying the original narrative and the set of norms informing the translation activity. It is the multiple identities of the translator that cause the voice pattern of a target text to become more complex than that of the original. The role of the translator (or “translatorship”) plays a significant part in any discussion of voice in translation because only the acceptance of the narrative patterns adopted by the translator allows the acceptance of the author’s narrative patterns (Alvstad & Assis Rosa, 2015).
Based on the literature above, the voice in the translation is hugely decided by the translator who has to play multiple roles in the process of translation. The roles include the reader and the narratee of the original as well as the narrator and translator of the target text. Translators are influenced by certain social-cultural factors when they play the roles. In this part, we will relate the translation of narrative voice and the representation of the Chinese storytelling mode to translatorship in order to explain the differences in each translator’s strategy-making and uncover contextual motivations with reference to each translator’s role and status in the concerned socio-cultural environment.
Buck brought Shuihu Zhuan or All Men Are Brothers to English readers in the early 20th century, when translation from the Oriental (Ezra Pound being a prominent figure in this aspect) was deemed valuable for “innovation to the American national culture and to the Western tradition in general” (Wang, 2019b, p. 694). She was a writer-translator who was brought to China at her infantry, and resided in China for 40 years. She acclaimed China as her hometown (Buck, 1954). Such an experience endowed her with a deep love for classical Chinese literature. Buck said that her “earliest knowledge of story, of how to tell and write stories, came to me in China” (Buck, 1938, p. 11). She emphasized that her knowledge of story came from the “indigenous Chinese novel,” not from “modern Chinese writers,” in other words, from classical novels like Shuihu Zhuan (Buck, 1938, p. 12). In her Nobel lecture, she described in detail how “a professional storyteller” would tell his stories in public places in old China. She was the type of translator whom some scholars identify as “cultural ambassadors for world cultures” (Sela-Sheffy, 2005, p. 15). Richard Nixon at the time of Buck’s death in 1973 called her “a human bridge between the civilizations of the East and the West” (Liao, 1997, p. 3). Buck has almost devoted her whole life to speaking for Chinese literature and bringing its beauty and uniqueness to the attention of Western readers. Her deep sense of mission to speak on China’s behalf gave her “not only great faithfulness in the translation of Shuihu Zhuan, but also the powerful position of an ambassador of world cultures, acting on behalf of the Chinese literature and committing herself to educating a cultured readership” (Wang, 2020, p. 197). The fact that Buck was well informed about the tradition of Chinese vernacular fiction might explain why she was keen on retaining the Chinese storytelling narrative mode in her translation.
Sidney Shapiro was officially appointed to translate Shuihu Zhuan in the 1960s. Shapiro’s affinity for China was fostered by his Chinese wife, Fengzi, a supporter of the Communists (Wang, 2019a, p. 91). It is because of Shapiro’s marriage to Fengzi that he became closely connected to Communist cultural circles and, later on, to the People’s Republic of China. In 1950 Shapiro was invited to work as an official editor in the state-run Foreign Languages Press of China.
As a translator of Shuihu Zhuan, Shapiro’s (2000) focus was different than Buck’s. He was particularly concerned with making it accessible to a late-20th-century general readership and with reaching “general readers in the West at that time” (p. 187). Being an official translator, he “had been transforming Chinese fiction into English for publication in China and sale abroad,” “ranging from ancient to modern, from short stories to novels” (Shapiro, 2000, p. 220). Shapiro (2000) himself regarded his translation of Shuihu Zhuan as “an ideal guide to understanding China today” (p. 222). Shapiro (2000) attached more importance to the informative and communicative functions of his translation than to its literary value, despite his frequent claim that he had referred often to Buck’s version. According to Newmark (2001), when a translation is intended to fulfill a communicative function across languages and cultures, literary forms become less important, so Shapiro exhibited a tendency to minimize the storytelling mode of the original story.
John and Alex Dent-Young undertook to translate Shuihu Zhuan in 1994 and finished their translation in 2002. Throughout the translation process, Hong Kong experienced considerable political instability, economic crises, cultural re-orientation and identity reconstruction (Wang, 2019b). The lead translator, John Dent-Young, was a scholar and translator who had studied modern languages at Cambridge University and then taught English language and literature at Chung Chi College of The Chinese University of Hong Kong from 1973 onward. While teaching in Hong Kong, he was advised by several translation scholars to translate Shuihu Zhuan and the program continued for 9 years (Wang, 2020). He was also a drama critic and had a number of academic publications to his name. On one hand, as a scholar-translator, he paid special attention to the narrative style of Shuihu Zhuan. The translators state in the preface that they “have emphasized oral storytelling aspect: whether this corresponds to a reality in the novel’s genesis or is a narrative device like the ones other writers have used to organize their fiction” (Dent-Young & Dent-Young, 2010, p. V). Their efforts can be seen in the compromises they have made between the adequacy of the source text and the acceptability of the target text. On the other hand, because the Dent-Youngs’ translation aimed to address “a new audience of general readers” in the 21st century, they had to “find meaningful equivalents for many local terms and proverbial expressions” from the target system while retaining “some flavor of other times and customs” by striking a balance between the Chinese storytelling narrative mode and the English narrative tradition (Dent-Young & Dent-Young, 2010, p. IX).
Concluding Remarks
This study examines the changes that translation can bring to the complex textual voice structure of narrative fiction by zooming in on textual occurrences of the overt narrative voice in Chinese vernacular fiction. To sum up, the study first reviews the features of narrative voice in Chinese vernacular fiction. Then it investigates how these features are translated into three different versions of Shuihu Zhuan with both quantitative and qualitative methods, and discusses the effect of the reproduction of the narrative voice. Furthermore, it addresses the relation between the rendering of the voice and the translatorship from a social-cultural perspective. The findings suggest that whether and to what extent the narrative voice is rendered affects the reproduction of the narrative mode as well as the colloquial narrative style of the original. However, there are, of course, many other aspects that interfere with the reproduction of the narrative style of a text and they deserve further scholarly attention.
The present study also reveals that the positioning of textual voices in the process of translation is closely related to translatorship, particularly how a translator approaches the narrative tradition of the source system and perceives the distance between the target reader and the source text. Although Buck was the first to translate Shuihu Zhuan into English in a complete version, her translation is not more domesticating as studies on retranslation have found about first translations (Paloposki & Koskinen, 2004). Her writer-translator status may have enabled her to appreciate the narrative form of the original text so that she reconstructed the Chinese narrative mode of an overt storyteller. Shapiro retranslated Shuihu Zhuan 50 years later, but his translation removed nearly all of the narrative features of the original novel and transformed the narrative mode from the Chinese simulated storytelling style to one in accordance with the Western narrative tradition. As an editor-translator, he did not place much emphasis on the reproduction of the literary form. The version by John and Alex Dent-Young was produced at the turn of the 21st century and tries to strike a compromise between the old Chinese style and the tastes of modern English readers. Although the complexity and the underlying relationship between different levels and types of voices remain evasive, the present study hopes to provide inspiration for further research into the interaction between the textual voice and the extratextual voice. In terms of the interdisciplinary combination of narratology and translation studies, although voice has become “the most studied category from the angle of translation and its troubles” (Prince, 2014, p. 24), it is still worthwhile to conduct further research on the relationship between translation of different narrative aspects and their corresponding stylistic effects at the textual level.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors acknowledge support from China National Funds for Philosophy and Social Sciences (中国国家社会科学基金项目) [Grant No. 19BZW073] and China Scholarship Council (中国国家留学基金管理委员会) [File No. 201906785019].
