七、八十年代，翻譯研究在德國出現了功能主義翻譯分析方法。凱薩琳娜．萊斯（Katharina Reiss）所提倡之有關文本類型和語言功能的研究所關注的不只是單詞與句子的對等，而更是文本層面的對等。萊斯主張將語言的功能與文本類型對應，在萊斯所著的《文本類型、翻譯形式和翻譯評估》（1977/89：108-9）中，萊斯將文學作品（literary works)等創造性行文（creative composition）歸類為表類文本（expressive text），並指出其合宜的翻譯策略必須能夠傳遞審美形式和採用原語作者的觀點，和原語作者使用「同一策略」。基於萊斯的表述類語篇類型的功能性特徵與其相應的翻譯策略（Reiss 1971）之理論框架，筆者將試圖討論葛浩文和他的妻子林麗君（Sylvia Li-chun Lin）所譯的Notes of a Desolate Man的翻譯策略。朱天文的《荒人手記》於1994年得到首屆時報文學百萬小說獎。本文中將針對其英譯本在字彙選擇、修辭技巧及句法再現之層面討論如何忠實複製原文本類型之翻譯策略。在句法上，英文譯本與中文原文忠實地呈現一對一之句型對應，而非將來源語的兩個句子併為目的語的一句或將來源語的一句譯為兩句。譯文的選字也盡量貼近原文的涵義；例如，「荒人」譯為「desolate man」、「繭居族」譯為「Cocoon Dwellers」。除此之外，聽覺和視覺上的隱喻，諸如「我聽見了偉人的肉身」（朱天文，1994: 54），完整譯為「Hearing the Great Man’s voice in the flesh」，並沒有省略「肉身」二字，將其有效地譯為「Hearing the Great Man’s voice」；又如「悼亡凝成無比堅硬的結晶體」（朱天文，1994: 38）也直接譯為「crystallize my grief」，而非「intensify my grief」。上述翻譯策略之目的乃是為了達到美學欣賞的功能，此亦是文學創作本身之主要目標。 然而，某些在目標語文化中無法找到對等詞，例如「綿綿書寫」（朱天文，1994: 38）中的「綿綿」；又如「色授魂語的哀愁凝結裡」（朱天文，1994：65）中的「色授魂語」，譯者只能選擇省略不譯。以此點而論，雖然譯本已成功地再現原小說之文學之美，目標語讀者之感受仍無法像來源語讀者閱讀原文般的細微精緻。畢竟，文學翻譯在萊斯所主張的文本類型功能主義的翻譯策略上，縱然傳遞了美感與藝術價值，但在文化和語言的差異之下，實無法克服Menachem Dagut所指出的翻譯空缺（voids or lacunae )現象，故仍不可避免地有其無法企及之處。

Western translation studies saw the emergence of Functionalistic translation theory in Germany in the 1970s and 1980s. The text typology theory proposed by Katharina Reiss shifted its equivalence concern from the word and sentence levels to textual function. In the book entitled Text types, translation types and translation assessment (1977/89: 108-9), Reiss categorized literary works as expressive text type and assigned aesthetic appreciation as the primary function of literature translation through the use of identical viewpoint and strategies as the original text does. Set within the theoretical framework of Reiss’s (1971) expressive textual function and its corresponding translation strategies, this article would discuss Howard Goldblatt’s and Sylvia Li-chun Lin’s strategies for translating 《荒人手記》(Notes of a Desolate Man). This fiction written by Chu Tien-wen, won the first China Times award for fiction (with its NT$1 million prize money) in 1994. The strategies for faithfully re-producing the original style in the English translation would be discussed in the areas of lexical choice, rhetorical devices and syntactic representation. The one-to-one sentence correspondence is demonstrated at the syntactical level without two sentences joined into one or one sentence split into two in the translation. The wording fully reveals the original implications; for example, “desolate man” is the English rendition for 「荒人」; “Cocoon Dwellers” for 「繭居族」. Additionally, the audio metaphor 「我聽見了偉人的肉身」 (Chu,1994: 54) is literally translated as “Hearing the Great Man’s voice in the flesh”, not as “Hearing the Great Man’s voice” by omitting 「肉身」. The visual metaphor, 「悼亡凝成無比堅硬的結晶體」(Chu,1994: 38) is directly rendered as “crystallize my grief”, not “intensify my grief” or others for effective communication. The purpose of using literal translation strategies is to achieve the function of aesthetic appreciation, commonly identified as the main goal of literature creation. However, it is noted that some adjectives that help create the visual or audio image such as 「綿綿」in 「綿綿書寫」(Chu,1994: 38) and 「色授魂語」in 「色授魂語的哀愁凝結裡」(Chu,1994: 65) cannot find their equivalents in the target culture, so the translators have omitted them. In this regard, the target audience can not exactly feel how the source audience feels about the original text although the strategies for translating the fiction have successfully created aesthetic sense and literary beauty as the original text does. Above all, in supporting Reiss’s claim of aesthetic priority in literature translation, the target audience’s aesthetic appreciation, under the uncontrollable influence of Menachem Dagut’s conception of cultural voids, can be inevitably different, to some degrees, from that of the source audience.