On The Intertextuality Of The Two Versions Of The Call Of The Wild

Intertextuality was first introduced by Kristeva in the early 1960s, and it is a popular concept in modern literary theory in imitation of structuralism and post-structuralism. In the early 1990s, intertextuality was introduced into translation studies, infusing a new perspective into this field. Since Kristeva put forward the concept of intertextuality, many domestic and international translation theorists have been engaged in the theory of intertextuality. The Call of the Wild is one of Jack London’s representative work, as well as his masterpiece. In the United States, the novel is used as reading material each year both in high school and college; in China, the translation versions of the novel are numerous. This paper, at first, reviews the theory of intertextuality and the contemporary research of the translation of The Call of the Wild, then from the source of intertextuality, it puts the theory into the practice of translation. It selects two Chinese versions of The Call of the Wild as a case study. From three perspectives of genre, plot and characters, this paper reveals that the theory of intertextuality does help to understand the original text and to create a positive purpose, in addition, it fills the gap of comparing and analyzing the translation versions of The Call of the Wild from the point of view of intertextuality.This thesis consists of six chapters, generally in two parts:The first part is a discussion on the relationship between intertextuality and translation. Within this part, the first chapter introduces the theoretical foundation, significance and the feasibility of the subject of this thesis, and the purpose as well as the structure of this paper. Chapter 2 is literature review including the status quo of studies concerning Chinese versions of The Call of the Wild, and studies concerning the integration of the intertextual theory into translation practice. Chapter 3 introduces the theory of intertextuality, reviews its origin, development, and different definitions and categories by different scholars for the sake of explicit understanding of the theory. Based on those different opinions, I make the intertextual analysis of the two Chinese versions of The Call of the Wild. In addition, further discussion about the close intersection between intertextuality and translation is conducted at the end of this chapter. Chapter 4 makes a brief introduction of Jack London, the translators and my own understanding of the novel.The second part of this thesis is the analysis of the two versions of The Call of the Wild in terms of intertextuality. Chapter 5 presents a brief account of intertextuality concerning The Call of the Wild, and analyzes the two versions from the perspectives of genre, plot and characters with details according to my own understanding. Chapter 6 is the conclusion of this paper. In this chapter, I attempt to incorporate the intertextual theory into translation and expect the target language readers to gain equivalent response of intertextuality with the source language readers. It points out that intertextuality has positive influence on translation studies and is worth further studying.