Translating African-American English into Chinese: A Case Study of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Xinru Gao

doi:10.54097/ehss.v14i.8796

Authors

Xinru Gao

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54097/ehss.v14i.8796

Keywords:

African-American English, Dialect, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Abstract

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was met with great controversy once it came out. In addition to being attacked morally, some of these languages in the novel are considered inferior and “trashy”. We cannot, however, completely reject it. African-American English (AAE) is the most spoken dialect in the novel, with many phonetic and grammatical variants compared to the standard English. This paper compares and analyses the translation techniques used in three Chinese translations while examining the characteristics of AAE in Huck Finn. The study found that Cheng Shi prefers to use “yuyin feibai” to translate AAE, Xu Ruzhi primarily uses modal particles to reflect the features of spoken language and Zhang Wanli uses standardized translation. This paper hopes to provide some inspiration for future retranslation of the book.

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