Translating Nonverbal Behaviour in Literature: With Pai-tzu as An Example

Abstract

Nonverbal behavior plays an important role in literary work but receives little attention in literary translation. Different use of linguistic devices by translators in representing nonverbal behavior of the source text would portray different images of characters. This paper, taking Chinese writer Shen Congwen’s short story Pai-tzu as an example, compares the translation of nonverbal behavior in its two English versions (by Ching Ti and Hsu Kai-yu). It firstly reviews definition and category of nonverbal behavior by scholars in diverse fields, as well as related theories in literature and translation. It then compares the two versions in dealing with the paralanguage and kinesics of the two characters, and explores how the differences between them lead to different features of the characters. This paper comes to the following conclusion: Ching’s version, by the choice of material or behavioral process and illocutionary verbs indicating voice quality, shapes a louder and more dynamic image of the woman, in contrast with a static image in Hsu’s version; the image Pai-tzu is vividly portrayed by Hsu due to the use of marked vocabulary and addition of chronemics and proxemics elements, in contrast with core vocabulary and word omission in Ching’s version; in dealing with body parts as agent metonyms, Ching’s version is closer to the style of the original due to the choice of agent metonyms and material process, while Hsu opts for mental process with human agent.