NARRATING SELF, TRANSLATING THE "OTHER": FOREGROUNDING AND POINT OF VIEW IN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Abstract

This research is undertaken to establish whether autobiography entails foregrounding and produces the point of view effect that is as intricate as that of novels and whether the translator’s voice contributes to the differences in point of view between different language versions. Its stylistics framework integrates the Prague School’s foregrounding theory, linguistic criticism, Hallidayan transitivity system and narratological theories of point of view. Lee Kuan Yew’s English and Chinese autobiographies, My Lifelong Challenge: Singapore Bilingual Journey (Challenge) and Wo Yisheng de Tiaozhan: Xinjiapo Shuangyu zi Lu, (Tiaozhan), serve as the dataset. The study refutes the conflation between the author, narrator and character in autobiography. It shows that the point of view arising from the interplay of the narrator, character and readers in Challenge adheres to the normative view of the author. In examining Tiaozhan, the thesis identifies linguistic indicators of the “other” voice (Hermans 1996) belonging to the implied translator and pinpoints traces of unreliability. It concludes that the involvement of translators has a far-reaching impact on ideology over and above the linguistic aspects.