A Study Of The English Translation Of Wolf Totem From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

Translation is given a higher status since cross-cultural exchanges around the worldare getting more popular, in light of which China decides to introduce Chinese cultureinto foreign lands. It’s expected to improve foreign readers’ understanding about China.The question here is that if the translated works are not well received by the targetreaders, they won’t be able to fulfill their roles as bridges to improve cross-culturalcommunications. Therefore, it’s important to study how they are received. Studies onsuccessful translated works and even unsuccessful ones can provide us inspiration andexperience, which can be used to improve subsequent translations and help them to bebetter received.Among a number of Chinese works which have been translated into English, thewriter of this paper chooses Wolf Totem (《狼图腾》) as her study object. This is becausein terms of the publishing house and the response from foreign media and readers, WolfTotem is a successful translation. It’s worth a careful study.This is a reception aesthetics based thesis, in which the writer gives a briefdescription of the reception aesthetics and states what translation and translation studiescan learn from it. All these are used by the writer to conduct a descriptive research onWolf Totem. To explain the translation process of this novel, the following questions areanswered: how Wolf Totem became the translating object; how the translator was decided;what the translation strategies are; and how some specific translation problems weresolved. Based on those analysis above, the writer concluded that there are three pointsworthy of learning from Wolf Totem’s translation from the perspective of receptionaesthetics: first, a translator with dual cultural identities is a better choice since his/herexpectation horizon of aesthetics will be more helpful in conveying cultural differences;second, as for the moment, the main task of introducing Chinese culture abroad shouldbe cultivating readers, which means when deciding what to translate, namely the type ofworks to be translated, we should take the culture circle and the reader group intoconsideration; third, flexible translation strategies should be adopted. Addition, omission,foreignization, or domestication is optional as long as it helps the work to be received by target readers.