A Study Of The Translator’s Creative Treason

“Creative treason” is primarily proposed in the comparative literature,subsequently expanded into translation study. It refers to unfaithfulness to the originaltext presented in the translated work, influenced by translator, reader, environmentand other factors. The translator’s creative treason originates from his capability,pre-understanding and visual threshold, largely impacting his translation strategies, sothe study of the translator’s creative treason contributes to presenting his translationmethods and providing references in the literary translation. Therefore, this thesis isvaluable to the translation theory and practice. Meanwhile, the thesis selects Nie-Zi asa case study, because it has been studied by many literature scholars but its Englishversion gains little attention in the translation study and it is translated by Goldbaltt inwhich his many translation strategies and methods are presented.In this thesis, the translator’s creative treason includes his treason in form,content and romantic charm. Treason in form is mainly presented by the translation ofreduplicated and onomatopoeic words and Chinese idioms. For these words, Goldblattsupplements, deletes and inverts them. In content level, he carries on his treason in theoriginal meaning by addition, deletion and change of vocabulary meanings in theoriginal text, including polysemy and under-translation. In romantic charm level, hecarries out his intentional treason in some words with rich cultural images in theoriginal work in order to reduce the reading burden. However, there are also someunintentional mistranslations in his translation for cultural default and inequivalence. This kind of treason makes the translated work far away from the original spirit, inspite of formal equivalence. Based on the above categories, the thesis analyzes thereasons for the translator’s creative treason from linguistic and cultural perspectivesand particularly summarizes Goldblatt’s translation strategies. For the treason in form,Goldbaltt mainly applies omission and paraphrase to remain the original meaning. Incontent, he uses replacement and supplement in his translation. Apart from thesestrategies, he also adopts free translation to achieve his intentional treason. Thesetranslation strategies not only make a summary about Goldbaltt’s creative treason, butpresent the values and significance of the creative treason in the translation practice.