Examining “deceptive equivalence” in “suspension” translation from Hard Times: A case study of Quan Zenggu and Hu Wenshu’s translation

This study delves into the Chinese translation strategies employed for rendering "suspensions" in Charles Dickens' novel "Hard Times," utilizing a combination of literary stylistic analysis and a corpus-based approach. The analysis reveals that translators Quan Zenggu and Hu Wenshu retained 73.74% of the "suspensions" from the original text, effectively capturing Dickens' distinctive literary style. However, they also employed merging and adjusting strategies, altering 26.24% of the "suspensions" found in the source material. These modifications resulted in weakened tension arising from retrospective pauses, a diminished synchronicity between movements and speech, disruption of the irony effect, challenges in character identification and traits, and a departure from the repetitive patterns of circumstantial information present in the original work. Moreover, these alterations disrupted the effect of dramatic conflict and misled the reader's focus, thereby influencing the thematic meaning, aesthetic value, and overall portrayal of characters' personalities. Consequently, a phenomenon of "deceptive equivalence" in translation emerges from a stylistic perspective.