On The Translation Of Variations In Fortress Besieged From A Perspective Of Postcolonial Translation Theory

In the context of globalization, the cultural exchange between the West and the East is rapidly increasing. One of the most important ways to introduce a culture is to introduce its literature. Amongst the Chinese literary works which are translated into foreign languages, Wei Cheng(Fortress Besieged) achieves much attention with an important feature of language variations. The present thesis, selecting the English version translated by Jeanne Kelly and Nathan Mao, endeavors to answer the questions of how the variations in Wei Cheng are translated, why they are translated in this way. and how to translate variations from a perspective of Postcolonial Translation Theory.The variations in Fortress Besieged are divided into eight catalogues mainly referring to Leech’s classification of language variations. Analyzing how these eight sorts of language variations are translated, we find that the translators substitute cultural-loaded variations with habitual English usages, advocate Christian culture and Anglo-American values, and understate the criticisms of the western culture. A statistical analysis of the language variations in Fortress Besieged shows that more than three quarters of the variations are translated in localization strategy. We can conclude that the translators adopt localization as the major translation strategy. In the light of Postcolonial Translation Theory, this is a manifestation of cultural narcissism and hegemony. The American policy, ethnocentrism and the translators’limitation can account for that. Nevertheless, translation can in turn be a tool of decolonization. Translators should first of all put themselves in the position of cultural mediators and respect other cultures. Since language variations are often cultural-loaded, foreignazing translation should be employed as far as we can in order to remain the foreignness of the source language, and cultural transplantation can be an effective translation method.