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1. Introduction

1.1 Research Background
As one of the most important representatives of American local literature, HamlinGarland has made great contributions to boosting the American literature, in particular, hismasterpiece Main-Travelled Roads which is the first one to reflect the actual rural life inAmerican Midwest. After its publication, it has caused tremendous wide public concern, andeven encouraged more people to rethink the reality in America. However, there are still fewtranslated works and researches about Garland in China, most of which focus on his writingstyle, writing spirit and philosophy of life. Hence, it is of great significance to introduce andstudy this collection at home for a better understanding of American rural history innineteenth century and American local literature.The success and value of Main-Travelled Roads lies in a plentiful supply of wonderfulcharacterization. Garland reproduces the vivid images of the poor class by employing thedevice of paralanguage in his work. Paralanguage, as a means of communication, plays a vitalrole in human beings’ daily life. Meanwhile, it has also accounted for large proportion inliterature, for it is helpful for readers in exploring and understanding the connotations ofutterances. As one of the broad genres in literature, novels and relevant researches haveenjoyed a long time, in which the translation of paralanguage is still the key factor to interpretthe novels. Being a member of translation field, it deserves to be further discussion here.As Zheng Shengtao(1994) put it, with the development of the concept of translation, itcan be defined as a high level of cross-cultural communicative behavior. Namely, the duty oftranslators is not mechanically shifting language, but conducting an effective culturalcommunication. In the process of translation, translators need to base translated versions onthe target language and target readers to interpret the original works. Since paralanguage itselfis the carrier of massive cultural information, it is necessary to explore the translation ofparalanguage from the perspective of culture between two language systems and furthermore,translators had better try to shrink the cultural disparity and bridge the cultural gap by all sortsof skills.
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1.2 Research Questions
The subject of thesis is the translation of paralanguage in literary work and the authorsystematically explores the following aspects:(1) Whether the paralanguage can be the member in the family of translation studies?(2) How the paralanguage in Main-Travelled Roads is reproduced in translated versions?(3) What kinds of strategies are adopted in the translation of paralanguage?In order to explore three questions above, this thesis will choose Main-Travelled Roadsand its two Chinese translated versions from three aspects: mood, body language andsituational conditions, as the case analyses to describe the realization of paralanguage in bothEnglish and Chinese systems.
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2. Literature Review

2.1 Comments on Hamlin Garland and Main-Travelled Roads
Hamlin Garland, an important representative in American local literature, wasconsidered as “Radical Reformers” in western grassland or “Western Henrik Johan Ibsen”. Hewrote more than 40 works in his life, which are closely associated with the life in Midwestand the social reform. Although having not received the formal higher e