On Translation of Nonverbal Behavior in The Husband

Abstract

Nonverbal communication is an indispensable part in literary text, since it usually indicates the identity and personality of characters. It is also the part that may cause misunderstanding due to cultural differences, therefore, translators should be extremely careful when dealing with nonverbal elements. As one of Shen Congwen’s most popular, and also most translated works, The Husband is such a short story with diverse nonverbal behaviors. This paper compares its three English versions (by Ching Ti, Gladys Yang and Jeffrey Kinkley) in translating nonverbal communication including appearance, silence and body language. It finds that, in terms of appearance and silence, Yang and Kinkley make explicit character’s personality or identity by choosing certain agent or process type. When translating culture-bound body language, Ching prefers literal translation, while Yang and Kinkley convert it to the nearest equivalence in target language.