A Study On Pearl Buck's Translation Of All Men Are Brothers

Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) was the first female writer who was both awarded the Pulitzer Award and the Nobel Prize in Literature. She was also the first writer to make a speech in the Nobel Lecture about the Chinese Novel. She had a magic life and the complicated experience provided lots of materials for her writing. She once said that she was so lucky to live in a confusion world.Pearl Buck came to China when she was only a child and she grew up in China, however, she studied and lived in America for many years too. Half of her life lived in China and the other half was in America. Different culture and life brought her double cultural identity and double cultural points of view. Pearl Buck was a prolific writer. Generally speaking, her works charted the geography of the Chinese land and pictured the Chinese local culture. She wrote continuously in English to boost culture, literature and her favorite novel of her second country—China.Many years living and studying in China, Pearl Buck was good at Chinese. In the late 1920s, she translated the famous Chinese classical novel Shui Hu Chuan. She was praised as the first translator who introduced Shui Hu Chuan to the world. From first publication, All Men are Brothers became a US best-seller, and it was published in second and subsequent editions later. It was a view for many westerners to understand China. However, a number of Chinese criticized her translation for'mistranslation'in their opinion. The argument of whether she did mistranslate lasts till now. These seriously hampered the objective judgment and evaluation of Pearl Buck's translation.There were some reasons for Pearl Buck to translate Shui Hu Chuan as well as how to translate. The thesis doesn't purely focus on specific version analysis and intends to study Pearl Buck and All Men are Brothers basing on polysystem theory since the translation has become a fact. The thesis has made an overall study of Pearl Buck by researching her living environment, education background, living social background, literary activities, biography and patronage. It intended to describe objectively and persuasively the elements influenced the version.There are six parts in this thesis. The first part is the introduction of the dissertation, including the background and significance of the study is stated, research objective, research methodology, significance of research and layout the thesis are presented. The second part introduces Shui Hu Chuan as a novel and its English translations. The third part introduces the theoretical framework of the thesis: Polysystem. Part four makes a polygenetic analysis of the formation of Pearl Buck's translation strategy. Part five makes a polygenetic analysis of the formation of All Men are Brothers. Finally, in part six, the conclusion reviews the research findings, the limitation of the thesis and the direction for further exploration.To sum up, Pearl Buck's translation All Men are Brothers has promoted the intercultural communication between East and West. There were diverse forces shaping the translation.