Paratext in Translation and Translation Studies: Perspectives,Methods,Issues and Criticism

This paper presents an overview of how paratext develops in translation and translation studies.After a brief introduction to Genette's term paratext,the paper proposes two types of studies of paratext in translation,which are implicit and explicit respectively.By "implicit",we mean that paratext per se is not used in such studies,but it really has played a considerable role in research projects like history of thoughts in translation,translation norms,gender-oriented and post-colonial translation studies.By "explicit",we mean that such studies,through cases and cultural study perspective,adopt the term paratext from Genette to explore what forms,function and significance paratext takes in various types of translation.To advance the field of study,the paper argues that more efforts should be made in strengthening theoretical issues concerning paratext in translation,extending to include non-verbal paratext in both literary and non-literary texts by adopting varied methods,and exploring how paratext can be tailored to promote Chinese literature to go global.