A Study Of The English Version Of Red Sorghum Under Lefevere’s Rewriting Theory

Traditional translation study is regarded as a conversion of two languages.Translation is restricted in text analysis and language comparison. In1980s, theappearance of “Cultural Turn” in translation field broadens the horizons of translationstudy. Translation is linked with ideology, poetics and patronage. Lefevere putforward rewriting theory. He put translation into wide social culture environment andstressed the impacts of ideology, poetics and cultural factors. Translation must becontrolled by and serve for ideology and poetics. Lefevere held the opinion that“Translation is a rewriting of original text. Translation creates another form of text.”This thesis focuses on Red Sorghum, which is one of Nobel Literature winnerMo Yan’s representative works. This book is translated by American sinologistGoldblatt. Goldblatt’s translation has many rewriting phenomena based on ideology,poetics and patronage. This thesis reviews Lefevere’s rewriting theory and the threefactors of rewriting theory. By comparing the translation version and original text, theauthor analyzes the rewriting phenomena and summarizes the rewriting strategies ofGoldblatt in Red Sorghum. For ideological aspects, Goldblatt usually uses omissionand substitution rewriting strategy. For cultural aspects, he always adoptsamplification, omission, transliteration, conversion and free translation rewritingstrategy. He applies substitution rewriting strategy in social aspects.