体裁分析视角下的书籍短评研究—以莫言作品英译本为例

论文总字数：28880字

摘 要

莫言获得诺贝尔文学奖后，其作品的翻译受到国内外学者的广泛关注。中国文学翻译如何取得成功，如何跟上世界潮流，已成为一个迫切需要解决的问题。

出版业的竞争日益激烈，对书籍的主要内容的介绍已不再是封底简介的唯一目的，而现今更多的是通过利用各种文本资源来说服读者购买书籍。虽然我们对书的简介很熟悉，但它并未引起语言学者们的关注。本文以斯威尔斯和巴蒂亚的体裁分析理论为基础，以亚马逊网站上莫言作品的短评为样本，收集并总结它们在体裁结构、语步构建等方面的特点，探讨如何在有限的篇幅内有效地实现其交际目的。

关键词：封底简介；体裁分析；语步构建；莫言作品；交际目的

Contents

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………1
2. Literature Review…………………………………………………………2

2.1 Book blurbs...................................................................................2

2.2 Mo Yan’s works translated in English world ............................................3

2.3 Essentials of genre analysis...................................................................4

2.4 Studies on genre analysis at home and abroad………………………………6

1. Genre Analysis of Blurbs of Mo Yan’s works……………………...........8

3.1 Communicative purposes of blurbs of Mo Yan’s works in English world…8

3.2 Genre analysis of blurbs of Frog……………………………………...8

3.3 Move construction of blurbs of Mo Yan’s works in English world …….10

4. Conclusion……………………………………………………....................11

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………...13

1. Introduction

1.1 Research background

In recent years, the study of Mo Yan is one of the focal points in America and China. Since winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, Mo Yan has risen to fame in the American and Chinese literary circles, and his influence has increased day by day. He has become the most outstanding representative of Chinese contemporary literature. The promotion of Mo Yan’s works is of great significance for Chinese literature to go abroad.

Book blurb is an extension and supplement of the cover of a book. It is a window for readers to take a peek at the style of the book. The unfinished words of the cover are clearly said and its writing should also be stylistic and incisive to reflect the quality of the book. The contents of book blurb which is easier to attract readers’ attention usually include book characteristics, celebrity recommendations, even book structure and some book excerpts. Successful book blurbs stimulate readers’ interest in reading and turn the curiosity into buying behavior.

However, at present, there is no systematic and in-depth study on the English book blurb of Chinese contemporary novels in the United States, especially in the study of American market. This paper analyzed the generic structure and moves of English book blurbs based mainly on Bhatia’s move analysis.

1.2 Significance of the study

With the increase of cultural exchanges with foreign countries, more and more foreign books are introduced into the Chinese book market. Most foreign books shoud be translated and re-edited after entering the Chinese market. In addition to the original translation, the translation of the background introduction of imported books has also attracted more and more researchers’ attention. Different scholars have analyzed the writing characteristics of the book blurbs from the angles of systemic function and evaluation theory. However, the research on the English book blurbs from the perspective of genre analysis is relatively rare.

Therefore, the research on English blurbs of Mo Yan’s novels has a very practical significance for China’s cultural development.

1.3 Structure of the thesis

Chapter One introduces the background and the siginificance of the study. Chapter Two clarifies the definition of book blurb and genre and briefly introduces previous studies on genre analysis at home and abroad. Chapter Three makes an genre analysis of English and Chinese blurbs of Frog. Finally, the author summarizes the findings of the study and advances some advice for Chinese literary works’ English book blurb.

2. Literature Review

This chapter defines the concepts of book blurb and genre and briefly introduced the English translation situation of Mo Yan’s works. Then it introduces six moves of generic structure.

2.1 Book blurbs

The word “blurb” is interpreted in the Oxford Advanced English-Chinese Dictionary as “the publisher’s introduction to the content of the book”. The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology and Longman Dictionary of Mass Media and Communication call it as “a commentary advertisement which often appears on the cover or back of a new book, a brief introduction to the contents and characteristics of the book”. In addition to the function, blurb also takes a number of reviews and recommendations from well-known newspaper reviews, journals, and magazines that intercept some of the praises and reviews. In the 1996 edition of the Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, blurb is defined as “a brief advertisement or announcement”. (230)

For academic publishers, the book blurb is a possible way to provide potential readers with the necessary information about their books (Basturkmen 22). At present, the progress of communication technology provides a new research direction for academia. The means to spread their academic achievements to the world through the Internet. Therefore, blurbs also appears on the web page (Gea-Valor 51).

As a result, book blurbs serve as a medium for introducing and promoting books with some characteristics of advertisement. They are usually printed to tap the potential needs of the reader and stimulate the reader’s desire to buy them. The quality of blurbs have a direct effect on the sales of books. As a result, book blurbs are getting more and more attention. At present, the research on book blurbs of English academic books mainly focuses on genre analysis, evaluation theory and cross-cultural comparison, etc.

2.2 Mo Yan’s works Translated in English world

Mo Yan is the first Chinese writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was born in 1956 in Shandong, north-eastern China. He, an author of over forty short stories and several novels, is the most critically acclaimed Chinese writer of his generation in both China and the West.

The overseas dissemination of Mo Yan’s works is of great relevance to the adaptation of the film Red Sorghum. The film version of the novel won first prize in the Golden Bear Awards at the Berlin Film Festival in 1988. It has exerted tremendous influence on the world literature. Since then, the sales of Mo Yan’s works have increased rapidly, and his works have received a great attention from critics and readers in the whole world. However, the translation of Mo Yan’s works is a challenge for translators because of his profound Chinese cultural background.

The primary contributor to the translation of Mo Yan’s works in English world is absolutely American translator Howard Goldblatt, for his unique translation thoughts and translation strategies are properly uesd in the translation of Mo’s novels. Goldblatt has a unique advantage in translating Chinese literature. As a sinologist with a good bilingual background, he has a strong interest in modern Chinese literature and has a strong translator’s ethics which is responsible for the readers. He always maintains friendly relations with the original author, and is faithful to the original as much as possible. Goldblatt knows the differences between English and Chinese, and the differences in grammar that make translation more difficult. However, the unique images in Chinese and the proverbs that are popular in China make the translated works in English easy to read without losing the flavor of the original works.

2.3 Essentials of genre analysis

Genre is considered to be the social language activity of the members of discourse communities to achieve their communicative purposes. Communicative purpose is the only standard to measure discourse genre and affects the choice of content and style. Although every book has a blurb, linguists pay little attention to it. Bhatia (2004 83) indirectly points out the promotional nature of the book blurb when discussing how the purpose of promotion affects the genre practice of academic introduction genre, and he argues that genre has traditionally had no promotional intent, including the introduction of books, but it is now difficult to tell from the book blurb of the publisher.

Genre and genre analysis have been widely studied and applied in different fields from different perspectives. Scholars in different periods defined genre differently. A genre contains a large number of communicative events, the members of which have some communicative purposes. These purposes are recognized by the experts of the non-discourse community, thus constituting the rationality of the genre. Bhatia (1993 46) states that genre is an identifiable communicative event characterized by the identification and mutual understanding of a set of communicative purposes by members of a professional or academic committee in which it often occurs. From social perspective, Martin (1984 25) also defines genre as a stated, goal-oriented, purposeful activity in which speakers engage as members of our culture.

The move-step model proposed by Swales (1990 58), a representative of ESP School and developed by his student Bhatia, is mainly aimed at academic and professional discourse. Bhatia has also analyzed it in the introduction of academic monographs.

The basic unit of the generic structure is the move. It is closely related to the author’s communicative purpose. If a sentence or group of sentences or phrases express the same communicative information, it can be recognized as a move. Bhatia (2004 175) divides the structure of the book blurb into six moves, some of which are further divided into several steps.

Move one is headline. Move two is justifying the book. This move can be implemented in two steps which are expressed in different ways: 1. Establishing field. 2. Establishing a aniche. Move three is appraising the book which can be presented to the readers in three steps : 1. Presenting a preview. 2. Describing the book. 3. Indicating value of the book. However, it is sometimes merged with the step 2, describing the book, making it difficult to subdivide. Move four is establishing credentials. Move five is endorsemen. Move six is targeting the market.

Take Red Sorghum for example:

Table 1 Move analysis of Red Sorghum

2.4 Previous studies on genre analysis at home and abroad

Genre originally refers to a literature and rhetoric concept in ancient Greek, then gradually developed into a genre theory, the modern linguistics discourse analysis and teaching research theory. The emergence of genre theory has successfully transferred discourse analysis from a flat description of the surface language to an deep explanation of the language structure that realizes the communicative function of the text. In recent decades, the theory has aroused the common concern of multi-discipline and multi-field, and its application is gradually expanding. There are three main schools of study in genre theory: North American New Rhetoric Studies represented by Miller and Bazerman, ESP (English for Special Purpose) represented by Swales and Bhatia and Systemic Functional Linguistics represented by Martin.

Genre is the result of classification of human communicative events in a particular context of culture and society. The so-called communicative events are examples of people working in society by using language according to specific purposes and programs. Based on Swales’ genre theory, Bhatia considers that genre is an identifiable communicative event with distinct internal structural features and a high degree of convention. In the construction of a text, it is necessary to follow the custom required by a particular genre to convey personal intent and communicative purpose. Therefore, the communicative purpose is an important criterion for distinguishing discourse genres and choosing language strategies. This thesis applies genre analysis theory of ESP school represented by Swales and Bhatia.

In the study of book blurb, Bhatia is one of the most prominent characters. He points out that traditionally considered non-promotional genres are becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from publishers’ propaganda. Therefore, he states the advertising nature of book blurb. Then, based on a multi-perspective model, he studies the genre analysis and defines the book blurb as a hybrid embedded genre, which is a promotional genre. In addition to the role of introduction and evaluation, book blurbs are of importance in promoting. Bhatia uses a chart to discuss the communicative purposes of book blurb (Bhatia 59) .

Promotional Genres

Book Blurbs Advertisements Job Applications

Figure 1 The Relationship between Book Blurb and Promotional Genres (Bhatia 2004 59)

In China, many scholars have realized that genre analysis are very important in translation of specific texts. Zhou Xuanfeng (51) points out that genre is a regular and stylized language product that has been used over a long period of time. Each text type expresses the intention and specific communicative function of a particular speaker. Wang Xue (102) finds that in the study of discourse linguistics, genre and text type to some extent provide directions and guidance for translation research and translation teaching. After deeply exploring the corpus of specific technical articles, she discovers that genre analysis can improve translation awareness and enable translators to recognize the social functions and patterns of language and the differences in specific texts in different cultural backgrounds.

3. Genre Analysis on Blurbs of Mo Yan’s works

3.1 Communicative purposes of blurbs of Mo Yan’s works in English world

As a representative of Chinese modern literature and the first Chinese to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, the promotion of Mo Yan’s works is of great significance in the “going out” strategy which aims to make Chinese culture more visible internationally.

Therefore, the blurb of Mo Yan’s book undertakes a very important task and should have the following communicative purposes: first, they provide basic information to potential readers such as brief introduction of the author or the book; second, they attract the attention of the reader; third, they persuade the readers to buy books. The ultimate purpose of the blurb is to persuade the reader to buy a book, which need to combine the cultural background and psychological factors of the consumers. Nowadays, there are so many books published in a year and consumers tend to read only the information they are interested in, so the book blurbs must move the reader as much as possible in a short space.

In short, the acceptance of a book is, first, determined by the consumers’ demand of the readers; secondly, the book blurb provides sufficient information to interest the readers; and finally, the readers buy the book. In fact, these three communicative purposes are not clearly separated, and they are usually intermingled.

3.2 Genre analysis of blurbs of Frog

The function of Move one, headline, is to attract the reader’s attention and highlight the selling point. Titles usually appear in the form of title or author’s name plus title. The font is slightly larger than the text and appears in boldface or uppercase. Move three is the core move of the book blurb which is used to evaluate the value of books. Step three refers to the evaluation of the value of books, and information which can help the readers understand the book. Move four which introduces the authoritative social status or contribution of the author or book establishes a good image to promote the purchase. Generally, the authortative press will print the logo on the book blurb to build a good image. Move five is to recommend a book with the comments of a well-known publisher, a newspaper, a magazine, or an authority to further persuade the readers to accept and purchase it, usually with a large number of appreciative adjectives or adverbs. After all, the celebrity effect is huge. Move six clearly points out what kind of reader is suitable for the book, usually appearing in the last sentence or paragraph of the blurb.

Table 2 Genre Analysis on Chinese Blurbs of Frog

Table 3 Genre Analysis of English Blurbs of Frog