In this part, the object of study, the objectives and the significance of this study aswell as the structure of this study will be introduced.
1 The Object of the Study
above the breast,one above the belly, one above the knee, one above the ankle, one above the buttock,one on the back of the neck. All of these are on the left side asyou go up and down: The hair is black as ebony, The above text is cited from a typical postmodernist fiction of Snow White byDonald Barthelme. It is appealing in its form. The spots take a shape of a line on the leftside of body. It seems that the author does not think such description through words isenough. Six spots are observed to be in a row just below the description. Besides, “thehair is black as ebony, the skin white as snow” would remind readers of GrimmBrothers’ well-known fairy tale with the same title. However, this “SHE” is quitedifferent from that beautiful Snow White. It would take much more imaginations forreaders to grasp the beauty of this different woman.The methods of adopting special typography and borrowing from old or familiarmaterials but telling another story are often pervaded in postmodernist fiction. Aglimpse of techniques of postmodernist fiction suggests that postmodernist fiction is abrand new form of writing with bold experiments with innovative forms. Indeed, thisstudy is mainly focused on the techniques that postmodernist fiction has employed,which excludes those overlapped techniques shared by modernist fiction andpostmodernist fiction. In other words, those features that make postmodernist fiction asit really means would be examined to lay foundation for further study of translations ofthe original text with such features.
2 The Objectives of Study
This study aims to figure out a certain rules of postmodernist fiction translation byexploring the unique features of postmodernist fiction and by observing how translatorsdeal with challenges brought about these features. In the literature review, it is obviousto discover that translation practice of postmodernist fiction is more a personalexperience through two different language and culture systems than a regularizedactivity that new learners and starters are able to follow. This study attempts to work outsome guidelines for new learners and starters to refer to or to follow. A prescriptiveconclusion-drawing is added to a descriptive analysis, which severs as the principle ofthis study.
3 The Previous Study on Postmodernist Fiction Translation
In recent years, the American postmodernist fictions have attracted attention of theforeign language field. Yilin Press has published “American postmodernist fictionseries”, covering 60 works of ten representatives of American post modernist writers,such as Robert Coover’s The Public Burning, Donald Barthelme’s Snow White, andKurt Vonnegut’s Timequake and so on. The issue of Foreign Literature sponsored byBeijing ForeignStudiesUniversitycontinuously published reviews on such postmodernist writers as Robert Coover, Kurt Vonnegut, Don Delillo, John Barth and theirshort novels. Compared with the introduction and translation practice of these works,the translation theoretical research on American postmodernist fiction falls behind.According to the statistics of CNKI, there are less than ten concerned with thetranslation issue of postmodernist fiction.Yu Jianhua, with rich experience in postmodernist fiction translation, writes anarticle of “Some Thoughts on Problems of Post Modern Fiction”. According to his owntranslation practice of Timequake, he makes an elaborate list of eight translationproblems in terms of language and culture. The shining points of this article contributeto a large number of specific translation examples. Under each item he has pointed, twoor more examples are offered. The writer here collected all the examples this articlementioned and draw a chart for readers to have a clearer understanding. Seen from the above chart, it is obvious that di
